hey peeps, just for anyone reading this in the future (not sure why no one's mentioned this small detail in the thread), it seems the registry fix does work in Windows 8, but not 8.1. However, the fix does not include a way to have separate login AND startup sound, as "systemstart" does not seem to exist in the registry. Have a nice day!
Yeah I just tried this on Windows 8. Now when I log in with my password, Classic Shell forces the desktop to load. The only start up sound is when my user name appears on the logon screen, but not when the desktop loads.