Windows startup and shutdown sounds through the ages

Look at these early Windows start-up sounds. They look primitive now but imagine being a young man in the late 1980s and your parents have just brought you home a new Packard Bell x86 machine. Back in those days sound cards were premium items and to hear an operating system sing to you when you start it up was a really big deal. The vast majority of computer users during that time would have never heard most of these sounds.

The Windows 7 version isn’t nearly as impressive, as evidence below, but I think we’ve replace sexy sounds with sexy videos in this visual age.