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Summary
- Windows 11 beta builds have a bug that swaps the startup sound with Vista's.
- Brandon LeBlanc confirmed the bug and clarified it wasn't intentional.
- The cause of the swap remains unknown, but it may have been an employee's playful act.
There's been a lot of renewed talk about Windows Vista after Apple revealed its strangely familiar "Liquid Glass" UI design, something that Microsoft itself wouldn't let slide without comment. Well, it seems that all that talk has stirred the Ghost of Systems Past, as the new Windows 11 beta builds seem to have a strange issue with Vista haunting the system. For some reason, the latest build swaps out the Windows 11 startup sound with Vista's, and while it may sound like a funny in-joke regarding Apple's announcement, it turns out that it is a bug after all.
Related
Windows Vista makes an eerie return in the Windows 11 beta builds
The bug first came to light via XenoPanther on X, who usually gives Windows 11 test builds a try and shares their thoughts with others. This time around, they noticed a strange bug when logging in; for some reason, Windows played the Vista startup sound instead of the Windows 11 one. After a bit of sleuthing, XenoPanther discovered that the .WAV file for the startup sound had been replaced with Vista's.
The Senior Program Manager for the Windows Insider Program Team, Brandon LeBlanc, hopped into the replies to verify that they know about the bug, joking that they brought back the sound in response to people "[saying] how much [they] loved Vista." People were still unsure if Brandon was being legit or just joking around, so he clarified that he wasn't being serious.
So, if it wasn't deliberate, what caused this issue to happen in the first place? Honestly, I think it was the act of a sneaky employee who wanted a bit of fun with Vista's resurgence of interest and made the swap themselves. And if it wasn't that, then I have no clue what would have caused this switcheroo to happen. I suppose that's part of the joy of being a beta tester.
While Microsoft is busy trying to remove Windows Vista's spectre from the beta builds, why not check out our comparison between macOS 26 Tahoe and Windows Vista's UI design? Vista may be almost 20 years old now, but its UI is still something people remember fondly to this day, even if the rest of it wasn't so great.
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