AP, Seattle: “Some musicians spend 18 months working on a whole album. At Microsoft Corp., that’s how long it took to perfect just four seconds of sound.”  That’s the Vista Startup Sound. Microsoft hired famous guitarist Robert Fripp for the job.&…

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ServiceGroupOrder]

Look for “AudioGroup”, move it to the bottom of the list, now the startup sound can’t play because the “Windows Audio Service” doesn’t start until all the other services have started!

This works great for me so far.

Don’t forget to export and save this key before changing it!!!!

What Steve Ball appears to be saying is that a common question he is getting a lot is “Why the hell would you want to do this in the first place?”. As in why would MS want to lock down a feature that has always been customizable in previous versions of Windows.