{"id":10017,"date":"2026-02-11T19:01:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/?p=10017"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:01:44","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:01:44","slug":"how-to-turn-off-the-startup-sound-on-windows-10-and-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/how-to-turn-off-the-startup-sound-on-windows-10-and-11\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Turn Off the Startup Sound on Windows 10 and 11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever Windows boots up and hits the login screen, you might notice a little startup chime playing in the background. Back in the good old days, that sound was handy \u2014 especially when your PC took forever to load, acting kinda like a sign of \u201cHey, the OS is ready!\u201d But these days, boot times are lightning-fast thanks to SSDs and better hardware, so the startup sound feels kinda pointless. Plus, if you\u2019re in a quiet coffee shop or library, that noise can be totally disruptive. So, disabling it might be a good idea if you want a quieter setup or just hate the blaring sound every time you start your machine.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it\u2019s not exactly straightforward because Windows doesn\u2019t make it super obvious. Changing the startup sound involves messing with DLL files if you want to customize it, but simply turning it off is way easier. The catch is, depending on your system policies, the option to turn the sound off may be grayed out or overridden. Still, there are a few reliable ways to do this \u2014 through the Sound options, Registry, or Group Policy \u2014 and even better, they\u2019re not that complicated once you get the hang of it.<\/p>\n<h2>How to Disable the Windows Startup Sound<\/h2>\n<h3>Using Sound Options<\/h3>\n<p>This is probably the simplest method. It basically involves toggling an option in the classic Sound control panel. Works well on most Windows 10 and 11 machines, and it\u2019s enough to silence the startup chime in most cases.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Hit the <strong>Windows<\/strong> key + <kbd>R<\/kbd> to open the Run dialog.<\/li>\n<li>Type <code>mmsys.cpl<\/code> and hit Enter. That opens the <strong>Sound<\/strong> window.<\/li>\n<li>Go to the <strong>Sounds<\/strong> tab.<\/li>\n<li>Scroll to find the checkbox labeled <strong>Play Windows Startup Sound<\/strong> and uncheck it.<\/li>\n<li>Click <strong>OK<\/strong> to save the changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you notice that the checkbox is grayed out or missing, that\u2019s probably because of a group policy that overrides this setting. In that case, you\u2019ll need to disable the policy (see below).<\/p>\n<h3>Using Registry Editor<\/h3>\n<p>This one comes in handy if the sound option is stuck or if you want to double-check that it\u2019s turned off at a lower level. The registry controls a lot of Windows behaviors, including whether the startup sound plays or not. Sometimes the policy overrides this, but if not, editing the registry usually does the trick.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open the Run dialog (<kbd>Windows<\/kbd> + <kbd>R<\/kbd>).<\/li>\n<li>Type <code>regedit<\/code> and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.<\/li>\n<li>Navigate to: <code>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Authentication\\LogonUI\\BootAnimation<\/code>.<\/li>\n<li>Look for the entry called <strong>DisableStartupSound<\/strong>. If it\u2019s not there, that\u2019s okay \u2014 you can create it.<\/li>\n<li>To add it, right-click on an empty space in the right pane, select <strong>New<\/strong> &gt; <strong>DWORD (32-bit) Value<\/strong>, and name it <strong>DisableStartupSound<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Double-click that entry and set its Value data to <code>1<\/code>. Hit <strong>OK<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>After doing this, restart your PC to see if it worked. Not sure why, but on some setups, this needs a reboot to kick in. If it still plays the sound, then something\u2019s overriding the setting.<\/p>\n<h3>Using Local Group Policy Editor<\/h3>\n<p>This is a more forceful method \u2014 well, because Windows has a policy setting that can override registry tweaks. If you\u2019re on Windows Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you have access here. Consumer versions usually don\u2019t, unless you add it manually, which gets a little more complicated. Anyway, changing the policy disables the sound at a system level, so it\u2019s pretty reliable. Just remember, if you disable via Group Policy, the registry setting might stay, but Windows will ignore it.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Open the Run dialog (<kbd>Windows<\/kbd> + <kbd>R<\/kbd>).<\/li>\n<li>Type <code>gpedit.msc<\/code> and press Enter.<\/li>\n<li>Navigate to: <strong>Computer Configuration &gt; Administrative Templates &gt; System &gt; Logon.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Find and double-click on <strong>Turn off Windows Startup sound<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Set it to <strong>Enabled<\/strong> and click <strong>OK<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Note:<\/strong> Windows Home editions don\u2019t have the Local Group Policy Editor by default, so if you\u2019re on Home, you\u2019ll need to enable it first or use the registry method, which is usually enough.<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, toggling the sound with either the control panel or registry works well, but sometimes system policies get in the way. If the sound stubbornly plays, double-check your group policies and registry entries. It\u2019s kind of annoying how Windows sometimes doesn\u2019t let you change these simple things without some extra digging, but once you figure out where to look, it\u2019s not so bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever Windows boots up and hits the login screen, you might notice a little startup chime playing in the background. Back in the good old days, that sound was handy \u2014 especially when your PC took forever to load, acting kinda like a sign of \u201cHey, the OS is ready!\u201d But these days, boot times [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10018,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10017\/revisions\/10018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howtogeek.blog\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}