Windows 10: Play Sound at Shutdown in Windows 10

How to: Play Sound at Shutdown in Windows 10

How to Play a Sound at Shutdown in Windows 10


Starting in Windows 8, the Windows Shutdown sound event has been disabled. This leaves you unable to change or play the Windows Shutdown sound when a user selects to shut down the PC in Windows 10.

As a workaround, you can still create an elevated task to play a sound at shutdown Windows 10.

This tutorial will show you how to play a sound at shutdown for all users in Windows 10.

*Warning You must be signed in as an administrator with a password to create an elevated task.


Here's How:

1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type taskschd.msc into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Task Scheduler.

2. Click/tap on Task Scheduler Library in the left pane of Task Scheduler, and click/tap on Create Task in the right Actions pane. (see screenshot below)



3. In the General tab, type a name (ex: "Play shutdown sound") you want for this task. (see screenshot below)



4. In the General tab, select (dot) Run whether user is logged on or not. (see screenshot below)



5. In the General tab, check the Run with highest privileges box. (see screenshot below)



6. In the General tab, select Windows 10 in the Configure for drop down. (see screenshot below)



7. Click/tap on the Triggers tab, and click/tap on the New button. (see screenshot below)



8. Perform the actions below: (see screenshot below)
A) Select On an event in the Begin the task drop down.

B) Select System in the Log drop down.

C) Type 1074 (user initiated shutdown) in the Event ID drop down, and click/tap on OK.




9. Click/tap on the Actions tab, and click/tap on the New button. (see screenshot below)



10. Perform the actions below: (see screenshot below)
A) Select Start a program in the Action drop down.

B) Type PowerShell in the Program/script field box.

C) Enter the command below into the Add arguments field box, and click/tap on OK.

*Arrow -c (New-Object Media.SoundPlayer 'C:\Windows\Media\Windows Shutdown.wav').PlaySync();

*note If you wanted to play a sound (.wav file) of your choice instead, you can substitute C:\Windows\Media\Windows Shutdown.wav in the command above with the full path of the .wav file you want to be played.




11. Click/tap on the Conditions tab, uncheck the Start the task only if the computer is on AC power box, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



12. Enter your account's password, and click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)



13. This task (ex: "Play shutdown sound") is now finished, and will now play a sound at sign-in for all users on your PC. (see screenshot below)




That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Change your Event Sounds in Windows 10
• How to Play Sound when Lock Computer in Windows
• How to Play Sound when Unlock Computer in Windows
• How to Play Sound at Logoff (Sign-out) in Windows 10
• How to Play Sound at Logon (Sign-in) in Windows 10
• How to Turn On or Off Play Windows Startup Sound in Windows 10
• How to Change Windows Startup Sound in Windows 10
• How to Shut Down the Computer in Windows 10
• How to Add Shut down Context Menu in Windows 10
• How to Create a 'Slide to Shut down' Shortcut in Windows 10
• How to Read Shutdown Event Logs in Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Shutdown Event Tracker in Windows 10
• How to Allow or Prevent Users and Groups to Shut down System in Windows 10

:)

 

Disabling fast shutdown headphone is not working.

In windows 10, on disabling fast shutdown laptop speaker play sound but no sound on plugging headphone. On enabling fast shutdown and shutdown the system and start again head phone starts working.

Thanks

Shadab

 

program sounds

I didn't make any suggestions.

I didn't get the sounds, I selected to play.

Trying to play startup and shutdown sounds, drastically increased the boot up, shut down, and restart times, in windows 10.

I went back and reset the play sounds at startup and shutdown to no.

I used the procedures in this thread

windows 10 sounds

 

Hello Comp Cmdo, *Smile

That's correct. You'll need to be signed in to an administrator account with a password to be able to create the task in this tutorial.

 

Good Morning,

I have created the scheduled task to play the selected exit sound but the sound will not play. When I open Task Scheduler and click on the task and click run, the .wav plays and the status of the task is ready, any suggestions.

Anders

 

Hello Anders, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

Did you follow the steps exactly?

The key is steps 5 and 12. If a mistake was made with either one, the task will not run.

In addition, see if having your .wav file in the same location I used as an example may help.

 

Hello Brink,

Thank you for the welcome and response. I double checked both steps 5 and 12 and both are correct. I had previously tried the registry edit to have the exit sound option show but never unchecked or reverted the registry to its previous status, could this be the problem.

Anders

 

The registry edit to show the Sound setting shouldn't affect this.

Where do you have the .wav sound located at?

If you like, upload the .wav file, and I'll test it on my system to rule that out.

 

Hi Brink,

I have run the task in Task Scheduler and it plays the exit sound only if I login with a password, if I delete the password, then the sound will not play. I guess I will just not have a shutdown sound.

Anders

 

Anders,

Yeah, the task requires the password of an administrator account for it to be able to run with highest privileges.

 

Nice solution.

But Windows its actually configurable through the default Sound control panel dialogue after changing a registry setting.

In the registry editor, go to:

Code: Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\EventLabels\SystemExit[/quote] and change the value of the key

Code: ExcludeFromCPL[/quote] from 1 to 0.

Then go to (might vary according to Windows version)

Settings, in the search box, type sounds, and select Change system sounds. In Program Events, Exit Windows will now be an option.

There are also similar settings for Logon and Logoff.

 

and change the value of the key

Code: ExcludeFromCPL[/quote] from 1 to 0.

Then go to (might vary according to Windows version)

Settings, in the search box, type sounds, and select Change system sounds. In Program Events, Exit Windows will now be an option.

There are also similar settings for Logon and Logoff.[/quote]

Hello xArx, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

Unfortunately, that registry change will indeed add "Exit Windows" to the "Sounds" control panel, but it doesn't actually work to play the sound for it or log on and log off.

 

That should be able to play then.

It wouldn't hurt to test by doing a Shift+Shutdown to see if there's any difference for you.

 

I've applied this tutorial to log off, log on, and shutdown, but it seems as though the shutdown sound doesn't audibly play half the time, even when Task Scheduler says it completed successfully, and when the path is both correct and as close to the C:\Windows\Media folder as possible. I think it's shutting down too quickly for PowerShell to play the sound, as when it plays, it's usually cut off midway. Is there a way to delay this so that it will play and then shutdown after it has finished playing? I think it might be possible with a bit of scripting.

 

Hello Robert, *Smile

I find that using a short playing sound works best because of this issue of it shutting down sometimes before the sound has finished playing.

I'm not sure about a way to delay the shutdown until the sound has finished playing.