Make your PC Greet you with a Welcome Voice Message on Windows Startup

Over the years, we have always been hearing the conventional startup sounds on Windows every time we turn our computers on. At some point, these startup sounds became a repetitive tones on most Windows users head or let me just call it "LTS" or "last tone syndrome".

Tip: For some nostalgia, follow this link and play the different startup sounds on every windows versions.

Microsoft assigns different startup tones on almost each & every version of their Windows operating systems - the XP version has a longer sound than Vista & 7 versions, and came the Windows 8 which has a short and calm startup tone. However, for some reasons, this startup sound has been turned off by default on Windows 10, but can be turned on by tweaking the sound settings.

Graphic Image by pikisuperstar - www.freepik.com

Do you know that you can set a custom welcome voice message every time you start your computer?  This trick uses the text-to-speech feature with SAPI (Speech Application Program Interface) voice. The method runs using VBScript lines where you can compose custom welcome message you want to hear on startup.

So, instead of just hearing a typical sound on windows startup, your computer will greet you a warm welcome before you continue hitting your keyboard and pressing your mouse/touchpad. This trick works on Windows versions 7, 8 & 10.

Now, follow these following simple steps to make your computer greet you with a welcome voice message on Windows startup.

Setup the Script

1. Open Notepad
2. Copy this following lines to Notepad,
   
   

   Set Sapi = Wscript.CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice")
   Dim masterName
   Dim currentHour
   
   masterName = "John"
   currentHour = Hour(Now())
   
   If currentHour < 12 Then
   Sapi.speak "Welcome to your computer, master " + masterName + "."
   Sapi.speak "Today is " & Date & ", the current time is " & Time & ""
   Sapi.speak "Have a very good day ahead!"
   
   ElseIf currentHour >= 12 And currentHour < 18  Then
   Sapi.speak "Welcome to your computer, master " + masterName + "."
   Sapi.speak "Today is " & Date & ", the current time is " & Time & ""
   Sapi.speak "A very good afternoon to you!"
   
   ElseIf currentHour >= 18 Then
   Sapi.speak "Welcome to your computer, master " + masterName + "."
   Sapi.speak "Today is " & Date & ", the current time is " & Time & ""
   Sapi.Speak "Have a good evening!"
   
   End If


Be sure to set the mastername string value and edit the greeting lines to whatever you want.


3. Save the notepad as .vbs file (e.g greetings.vbs) on your desktop. Make sure to select the All Files (*.*) on saving options before you hit the save button.
   
   
4. Once saved, copy the file on the windows startup folder location:
   
   C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
   
   or simply press Windows Key + R to pull up Run and type shell:startup then hit enter.
   
   
5. Done! Now you can restart your computer and witness the trick on startup. Make sure to pull up the system volume.

Change the default Narrator Voice (Optional)

The voice message uses the default narrator voice, on Windows 7 is Anna, and on Windows 8 & 10 is David, both speaks American English Accent. You can change the default narrator voice through Text-to-Speech settings on C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Speech\SpeechUX\sapi.cpl.