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I'd like to locate the Windows 10 startup sound to swap it out for another file, but I've not been able to locate it. Most Windows sounds are in the Windows\Media directory and there is a 'Windows Startup.wav' in there, but it's only 37KB and doesn't seem to contain audio when I play it. Does anyone know where the real file is hiding?

Sam
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No, it's hard-coded in this file:

C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll

Jake Wynn
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  • They've been moved to C:\Windows\SystemResources\imageres.dll.mun now, as of Windows 10 version 1903. [More info here](https://superuser.com/questions/1480268/icons-no-longer-in-imageres-dll-in-windows-10-1903-4kb-file) – dlitz Dec 03 '22 at 10:07
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You are in the correct location. And if it is a 37 KB file, you can't say it contains/plays nothing. You need to listen more attentively since I can clearly hear a sound that is less than 1 second in duration. Do one thing: Put on your headphones and try listening to it at 60% volume. You can play the audio via default Groove Music player as well.

Try swapping the audio with another audio and check if it works or not. I hope this helps :)

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    Fair point - there's something there and I could have mentioned it, but it's clearly not the Windows startup sound, which is several seconds long (you'd recognise it - they just re-used the Windows 7 startup sound). – Sam May 24 '20 at 12:42
  • To be fair, I've never enabled startup sound in my Windows 10 PC and have absolutely no idea how it sounds –  May 24 '20 at 13:35
  • Quite nice actually and it's a handy troubleshooting feature if you got a black screen at boot but then hear the startup sound, you know it booted so it's probably graphics card or monitor that has failed. – Sam May 24 '20 at 20:06