Windows 7: My Windows 7 Rig Has a Country Twang

My new Windows computer makes a sound at various times which correspond roughly with when Windows XP would make a beep, that sounds like a note played on a slide guitar. It has a country twang.

There is another sound I often hear too, that sounds like a slightly less resonant version of a brief water hammer (banging of steam pipe).

Check your sound scheme

R-click on the sound icon > Sounds and you have the options for which sound scheme you want, or create yourself.

That's likely the Delta sound scheme which plays when you choose the US Aero theme in Control Panel>Personalization.

If you click on Sound schemes there you can try others, or just choose another Aero theme including the Windows 7 Aero theme which uses Default sound scheme.

I see. So there is a choice of sounds with Win 7. That's clever. I'll leave it alone for now. The twang is a pleasing enough sound. I couldn't characterize the water hammer as pleasing, but it's not offensive.


I have a rotating exhibit of desktop background photos too, comprised of various landscape images. They're very nice, but since I do my own photography, I may likely at some point want to put some of my own photos on the desktop, like I did with Win XP. With XP though, I was only able to display one image all the time, until I manually changed it to another one. I wonder if I could arrange to have a series of my photos come up in rotation like these default photos do?

It is very easy to do that. Keep your favorite photos in a folder. Right click on desktop and select "Personalize". Select "Desktop Background".

In the picture locations, use browse button and browse to the picture folder, You will see the thumbnails of the images you placed in the folder. Make sure all are selected. In the picture position select appropriate choice. Select the time interval for changing the pictures. Save changes and you will have your own desktops automatically changing.

Anytime you may also manually change the desktop by right clicking and select "Next Desktop Background".

I also install a collection of 120 Windows 7 backgrounds from each national edition using the slideshow. This is the feature that gets the most raves on my installs.

To try it download 120 Original Windows 7 High Resolution Scenery Regional Wallpapers Free Download » My Digital Life, save to My Pictures, browse from Personalize>Desktop Backgrounds>Browse button to the saved folder which will load them all into slideshow app and Select All, Save.

You can add or subtract any pictures you like from the folder location.

Once you find the sound scheme you like, save the whole package as a theme at the top of Personalize box. This way you can restore it all with one click if necessary.