If you don’t like some of the other default Windows sounds, you can change them also in the same manner. Step 3: Now copy the two renamed files to the C:\Windows\Media folder and restart your computer! You should now hear the new audio play rather than the default sounds. This is just in case the two WAV files you created do not work and you want to revert back to the original sound. Go ahead and move the two original files from the Media folder to some other backup folder. Here you will find the files Windows XP Startup.wav and Windows XP Shutdown.wav along with a bunch of other Windows sounds. Step 2: Now go ahead and navigate to the folder with the current startup and shutdown Windows sounds, which is C:\Windows\Media. Step 1: Rename each WAV file to Windows XP Startup.wav and Windows XP Shutdown.wav respectively. Let’s start with copying the audio files to the sounds directory.
There are two ways to go about changing the startup and other sounds in Windows XP: simple drag and drop into the appropriate folder or using the Control Panel. Try to keep the file size small, less than 1 MB if possible.
If you have an MP3, you can convert it to WAV format easily using a free online tool like Media.io. Before we get into the details, you will first want to find an appropriate audio file in WAV format. I’ll go through each operating system below to make it as easy as possible depending on your OS.
