- Windows 11 Test Builds Playing Windows Vista Startup Sound
- A Microsoft Exec has confirmed that this is an error in these previews
- It seems a surprising coincidence, considering that Microsoft recently has pierced fun on Apple’s floating glass to look like Windows Vista
In one of the weirdest developments with Windows 11 for some time, test building of the operating system is temporarily affected by an error that has changed the starting sound.
It’s the Soundbite game when the desktop first appears, and instead of the usual Windows 11 -Ditty, testers started in the beta and DEV channels their PCs to hear the noise of Windows Vista (and Windows 7) instead.
These four nostalgic notes will immediately transport anyone who owned a PC with these operating systems right back to that era of computer history, and no doubt immediately confused a whole lot of testers.
There seems to be an error where Windows Vista/7 Start -up sound is used in the latest Windows 11 Beta and Dev channelsJune 13, 2025
Why did this happen? The Xeno, the Windows tester, which marked this as an error on X (see the above mail stained by Toms Hardware), received confirmation from Microsoft’s Brandon Leblanc, a senior product manager for Windows in the company that it is actually a mistake.
But not before Leblanc haunted, “I went in and had fun with the audio files in Windows and thought people needed an explosion from the past 😉 You said how much you loved Vista.”
When someone responded to say they couldn’t see if Leblanc was joking or no longer, Microsoft Exec clarified that it is actually a real error that causes the Windows Vista starter sound to play.
Analysis: Clippy Conundrum
How can an error like that possibly crawl in? It certainly can’t, even though I guess what leblanc means is that someone messed around with start -up sound for fun and accidentally implemented the change for Windows 11 testers when they didn’t mean it.
Presumably, although this may be the case, old features from long-dead Windows operating systems can actually just manifest in Windows 11. In which case, testers look for Klipy accidentally appear later in the year. Or the icons on the desktop suddenly return to what they looked like in Windows 3.1, maybe. Who knows where the unclear happy round of nostalgic mistakes can lead us next time?
Ahem. Or it’s all tongue-and-kind, despite the fact that Leblanc plays it even on X, and the fact that the error is added as a known problem for the Dev Channel Preview Build, with Microsoft says it “is working on a solution.”
Of course, it all seems too big random that Microsoft has just pierced fun on the big fanfare and fuss that Apple presented its floating glass interface to MacOS Tahoe 26 (and other major platforms) when it is reminiscent of Windows Vista’s Aero effect.
So Vista Startup Sound accidentally appearing here to reinforce the particular bit of shade-casting is, we must say, an interesting coincidence. I mean bug. Yes – definitely an interesting bug.
