I'm going to ask forgiveness in advance, but I have to get something off my chest.
The blogosphere proves once again that it has nothing better to do then argue over stupid, minute details. Now people are arguing over whether or not you should be allowed to disable the startup sound in Windows Vista. Yeah, I'm not kidding.
Yeah, the XP startup sound is annoying. Have you heard the new UAC sound yet? How about the new shutdown sound? The Vista sound will be a lot more mellow. So you won't blast the startup sound over your speakers. Plus, you can't shut the startup sound off on Macs, or other hardware devices... so what's the problem?
Are you seriously going to be in the store going "What, I can't turn the startup sound off? Screw those bastards! I'm buying a Mac. <pause> Oh, you can't turn it off there either? Screw those bastards! I'm off to spend 14 hours configuring Ubuntu Linux!" and walk out?
Complain about performance, complain about usability, complain about compatibility... Fine. But about a freakin sound? 99% of the world's population doesn't care about the damn sound, they just want to do what they need to do without something going wrong.
It's like saying that I can't talk about Christmas because YOU don't believe in it. Look, exercise your right to hit your mute button and get on with your day. Ugh. Seriously man, if you guys put this much effort into changing the rest of the world, maybe it wouldn't be so screwed up.
<end rant>