How to Change the Notification Sound in Windows 10 May 2019 Update

[The AchieVer]

How to Change the Notification Sound in Windows 10 May 2019 Update 

I don’t know about you, but the notification sound in Windows 10 isn’t really my cup of tea, and one of the things that I do after clean-installing the operating system at home and at the office is changing this sound.

Back in the days when Windows 7 was the newest Windows version on the market, changing system sounds was actually a thing that many more people did.

However, in Windows 10 the majority of users just stick with the default sound settings, and I think one of the reasons for this is that the process of choosing their own sounds isn’t really straightforward.

As you probably know already, one of Microsoft’s priorities is to move all Control Panel items to the Settings app in Windows 10, which means that at some point in the future, the classic configuration screen would be ditched entirely.

However, in the existing Windows 10 versions, the traditional Control Panel continues to live alongside the Settings app, and while many of the system options are available in the latter, the first also comes with some exclusive configuration settings.

Among them you can find the screen that lets you change the system sounds on Windows 10, which for some reason, hasn’t yet been migrated to Settings. Most likely, this will happen in a future Windows 10 feature update.

So to change the system sounds, including the notification, you first need to head over to the Control Panel. Microsoft has made it harder to access the Control Panel in the latest Windows 10 versions by removing the shortcut from the Win + X menu, but just click the Start menu and then type Control Panel.
 

 

 

Once you’re there, you need to follow this path to find sound settings:

Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Change system sounds > Sounds (tab)

An alternative path is through the Settings app, but you’ll end up in the same Control Panel applet:

Settings > System > Sound > Sound Control Panel > Sounds

In this particular screen, you need to look in the Program Events field in the lower part of the screen and then search for the Notificationentry.

The default sound that notifications use in Windows 10 is called Windows Notify System Generic. It uses the WAV extension, as all the other sounds on your device and is located at the following path:

C:\Windows\Media

At this point, you can change it with pretty much any sound you want or just replace it with a sound that’s already available in Windows 10.
 

 

 

For example, you can choose a different default sound by clicking the drop-down menu in the Soundssection. You can try out your selection by simply clicking the Testbutton in the same screen.

On the other hand, if you want to use a custom sound that is stored on your device, just click Browse and then point the settings screen to your file. Again, you can preview the sound by clicking the Test button.

I recommend you to use a short tone for notifications, like a sound effect or something like that, especially because notifications themselves have become a key feature of Windows 10, and you’ll be hearing this sound a lot. This is because notifications are sent by many of the apps running on your device, so if you don’t want to end up hating this sound, you better choose something simple that plays for just a second or two.

You can obviously return to the original configuration at any time by following the steps above and setting up the generic file as the notification sound.

 

 

 

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