Change the System Sounds and Turn Off the Startup Chime

The chime at sign-in is the **Windows Logon** event, not the startup sound from the firmware. The two are separate and fixed differently.

Start-Process mmsys.cpl
# Sounds tab > Program Events > Windows Logon
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' | Select-Object * -ExcludeProperty PS*

A scheme assigns a wav to many events at once. **No Sounds** clears them all, which is the fastest way to silence a machine without hunting each event.

# Sounds tab > Sound Scheme > No Sounds > Apply
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object '(default)'
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' | Select-Object '(default)'

Per-event silence sets the wav path to empty for that event. The rest of the scheme stays intact, which keeps error sounds audible.

New-Item 'HKCU:\AppEvents\EventLabels\WindowsLogon' -Force | Out-Null
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\EventLabels\WindowsLogon' -Name '(default)' -Value 'Windows Logon'
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' -Name 'WindowsLogon' -Value ''
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' | Select-Object WindowsLogon

The sound plays at logon, so the test requires a sign-out. A short lock and unlock cycle confirms the change without closing your session.

rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation
# sign back in and listen
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' | Select-Object WindowsLogon,WindowsLogoff,Notification

Any wav file works as long as it is local and readable. A network path fails at logon, because the share is not connected yet.

$wav = 'C:\Windows\Media\Windows Notify System Generic.wav'
Set-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' -Name 'Notification.Looping.Alarm' -Value $wav
Test-Path $wav
Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\AppEvents\Schemes\.Current' | Select-Object 'Notification.Looping.Alarm'

App notifications have their own toggle in Settings. A scheme change does not silence those, which is why a machine can stay noisy after the fix.

Get-ItemProperty 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Notifications\Settings' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object NOC_GLOBAL_SETTING_ALLOW_NOTIFICATION_SOUND
Start-Process ms-settings:notifications