Ever consider customizing the sounds of Windows Media Center 2005.  By design, there are four events that trigger a sound to be played.  The intro sound played when Media Center starts, when a screen comes into focus, when an item is selected and the dreaded error sound.  All of these sounds can be customized and replaced with any wave audio file (.wav).  In theory, you could take your favorite MP3, convert it to wave, use a wave editor to create a cool fade out after a few seconds and then use it as the sound that is played every time Media Center launches.  Are you getting bored of the other sounds as well, why not replace them with some of the millions of free wav sound effect files floating around on the web?

The process of changing the wave file is not as easy as changing the sounds of Windows XP, but follow my steps below and pretty much anyone can do it.

1. First, let’s get all tools you will need to do this.  The most important tool you will need is a utility called Resource Hacker.  Go ahead and download it from http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/.  Once you have it downloaded, extract the files to a directory.
   
2. Before you go any further, it is a good idea to create a backup of the file you are going to edit.  For this tweak, you are going to edit a file called ehres.dll located in C:\Windows\ehome.  Make a backup copy of that file at this time.
   
3. Next, fire up that copy of Resource Hacker you downloaded in the first step and open up the ehres.dll file located in C:\Windows\ehome.  Expand the WAV folder and you will see the different sound events as shown in the screenshot below.
   
   
   
   
4. Now let’s say you want to replace the intro sound.  Expand the INTRO_A.WAV folder and right click on the 1033 and select Replace Resource.
   
5. On the Replace Resource window, hit the Open file with new resource button at the top and select the wav sound file you want to replace it with.  Remember, you must use a WAV file, not a MP3 file.  If you need help on converting a MP3 to a WAV just Google it and you will find tons of utilities that will do that for you.
   
6. Next, while you are still on the Replace Resource window, key in WAVE in the Resource Type box and the name of the wav file you are replacing in the Resource Name box.  For example, if you were replacing the intro sound, you would type in INTRO_A.WAV in that box.
   
7. Hit the replace button and then go to File and then Save to save your changes to the file. 
   
8. You changes have now been made.  However, Windows XP doesn't like you touching it's dll files so it will replace you modified file with the original if you don't stop it.  To fix this, just save an additional copy of your modified file to C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache using the File, Save As feature of Resource Hacker.  You must do this, otherwise you changes will be wiped away!

You sounds are now changed!

If something went wrong, that’s why you made the copy of the file you were editing earlier.  Just replace the file you edited with the original and you will be back to the pre-hacked sounds.

If you have any questions or problems, just hit the discuss this article link below.