There are a total of 45 Vista sounds that Microsoft has spent the last year and a half perfecting, including the dings you hear when you get a new e-mail, receive an error message, or log off your computer. Generally, these are more muted, less jarring variations of the prompts familiar to Windows XP users.
Trillions of replays
If it seems like overkill to go to all that trouble for a few seconds of sound, consider this: Microsoft estimates that the clips such as the e-mail alert will be played trillions of times in years to come. That's a lot of opportunity to annoy, offend — or, if the job is done right — please or appease computer users the world over.
One major concern was that the startup sound not grow grating after a time.
"You want a sound that people will love the first time they hear it, but it's a paradox to also say, 'Oh and by the way, we need people to love it the tenth, or the hundredth, or the thousandth time they hear it,'" Ball said.
That's one reason he was glad to have 18 months to choose the clips.
