Solved Windows 8/8.1 logon, logoff sounds

[hellothere]

Hey guys I'm new to the forum and i was just wondering if any of you know how to get the logon, logoff, unlock, lock, shutdown sounds to play in windows 8.1. I have the "play startup sound" box checked off and i also went into the registry and changed the 1s to 0s and brought them to the sounds. Any help would be great as it is hard to find out how to online I keep trying but find no way how to. Thanks!

 

[Brink]

Hello, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Unfortunately, the he logon, logoff, unlock, lock, shutdown sounds have been hard coded to be disabled in Windows 8/8.1. You could add the options back in the Sound CP, but they still will not work because of the mentioned reason.

 

[hellothere]

Okay thanks

 

[Brink]

You're welcome. Sorry that it doesn't seem possible.

 

[hellothere]

Its okay. Thanks for your help!

 

[Okedokey]

I think you will find this works

Press Win+R to bring up the Run menu. Type in regedit and press OK to bring up the Registry Editor.

Head to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\EventLabels and you should see a number of subfolders, each one representing a different sound in the OS. If you click on one—say, WindowsLogon—you'll see a key in the right pane called ExcludeFromCPL. Double-click it and change its value to 0.

Repeat this process for WindowsLogoff and SystemExit.

Exit the Registry Editor and head back to Control Panel > Sound > Sounds. You should see those options have returned to the menu, and you can customize them as normal.

 

[Brink]

Hello Okedokey, and welcome to Eight Forums.

While that will add those events back to Sounds to be able to change them, you'll find that they still actually not work. I've already tested this a while back, and was sadly disappointed.

 

[Okedokey]

I assure you it works fine How To Customize Windows 8 Shutdown, Logon and Logoff Sounds

 

[buzz]

^^^Look at the user comments on the above link....

 

[Brink]

I assure you it works fine How To Customize Windows 8 Shutdown, Logon and Logoff Sounds

I assure you that I had already fully tested that a long time ago, and it doesn't work.

It will add the sound options, but the sounds do not play during the event (ex: log off) they are for since they have been hard coded to not work anymore.

Test for yourself, and you shall see.

 

[dburne458]

I assure you it works fine How To Customize Windows 8 Shutdown, Logon and Logoff Sounds

I assure you that I had already fully tested that a long time ago, and it doesn't work.

It will add the sound options, but the sounds do not play during the event (ex: log off) they are for since they have been hard coded to not work anymore.

Test for yourself, and you shall see.

Agreed, I had tried getting some sounds back and had searched and done much the same, to no avail.

 

[Dearka]

i just want you guys to know that what Okedokey posted works. It works but you have to add sounds to those events...

 

[Brink]

i just want you guys to know that what Okedokey posted works. It works but you have to add sounds to those events...

Hello Dearka, and welcome to Eight Forums.

I'm sorry, but it works only as far as adding them as options to your Sounds dialog. If you actually try it, you'll discover that the sounds do not play. It's nonfunctional.

 

[Dearka]

You are right, it doesn't work. I'll try to "activate" the logon sound using a vbscript instead. I'll give you feedback when I'll get results

 

[Brink]

Another option would be to create a task in Task Scheduler to have a sound file played at log on.

 

[Dearka]

So I think we can consider this case closed. There's no logon nor logoff sounds in windows 8 (I tried creating a vbscript that would have been scheduled in the task manager without success). Still, I wonder why Microsoft left it in the registry if it is of no use anymore.

 

[tonymarcus]

I wonder what made Microsoft disable them in the first place?

 

[Brink]

It was done for two main reasons.

One for better security by preventing files that could be compromised from being able to run outside of Windows.

Two for helping performance by not having the delay of the sound files playing before continuing.

 

[dburne458]

It would seem it effects trying to set other sound settings as well, for instance for my Quicken program I can go in and assign new sounds to actions within windows sounds settings, however they always reset back to default and do not stick.

It would seem we are very limited in custom sounds options in Windows 8.1.

 

[Brink]

Hello dburne,

If you have not already, you might see if saving your sound scheme and theme may help them to stick.

Hope this helps.