Are there any decent sound themes for XP out there?

August 28, 2006 10:24 AM

Does anybody know of any decent replacement sound themes for Windows XP?

I find a lot of the default XP sounds quite abrasive, so I was wondering if anybody knew of any replacement themes which sound a bit nicer? I know it's easy enough to turn the XP system sounds off, but they are quite useful to have. I'd just rather not jump out of my seat every time I have my music on loud and an XP error window pops up! Searching on Google leads to nothing but crap.

posted by chorltonmeateater to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: Since this has no answers, I'm going to give it a shot... I hope it's helpful.

You can pick the sounds you like best from the available Windows sounds, and set those sounds for multiple purposes. You probably already know this, but just go to Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices. Under the Sounds tab, go down to the list and use the little play button to preview each sound. Note the names of your favorite sounds and use those .wav files for several items.

Or, here's what I used to do. You know Desktop Themes, where they change your icons, wallpapers, and screensavers? Well, you can save sound schemes too. So let's say you have a Looney Toons desktop theme, just as an example. Go to the Net and search for Looney Toons sound clips. Download them, convert them to .wav if necessary (using a free program like Goldwave or Audacity) and use the same dialog from above to browse to your .wav files and set those as sounds.

Since you can use any .wav files as Windows sounds, I imagine if you were patient (or obsessive?) enough to do it, you could copy out lines from your favorite songs and make each line a Windows sound. Be warned though - .wavs are big and you might get annoyed hearing "Hit me baby one more time" every time you've got new e-mail.
posted by IndigoRain at 2:36 AM on August 30, 2006

Added note: You can save your sound scheme once you set all the .wav files to whatever you like.

(sorry for the double post)
posted by IndigoRain at 2:36 AM on August 30, 2006

Response by poster: Thank you for trying IndigoRain, but I did know that already.

It seems strange that there's so many good resources for wallpaper and themes, but absolutely nothing for sounds, unless you want to drive yourself mad with Simpsons quotes or spend hours/days looking for suitable clips within CDs.

Thanks anyway!
posted by chorltonmeateater at 2:42 AM on August 30, 2006