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Comment by ayaros | Hacker News Reader

The Windows XP tour was peak Luna and peak Microsoft and represents the high point of all human technology.

It should have been represented in this article and it wasn't. Truly that's a crime against those who have not had the opportunity to experience it.

I have the Windows XP tour music. I keep it in my library and listen to it. You can find WAV files if you know where to look. I keep the OOBE music in the same album (both the original and remastered versions).

Through this incredible multimedia presentation I had the opportunity to learn about wizards and how Windows XP is best for business. I think there was also something in there about how to open a window. Also, it had that beautiful compass icon and those unmarked Luna-style colored buttons that were used to select each section of the tour. They were my favorite part.

I miss those days.

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You triggered a memory.

I modified the WMA file that played during the XP OOBE on an image that was rolling out to one of my Customers. I knew who would be deploying most of the PCs. At a point about halfway thru the piece, when it gets kind of quiet and the melodic instruments fall away (right before the chanting bit, if I remember correctly) I mixed my voice quietly whispering the deployment person's name a couple of times. Sadly, I never heard of they noticed their name in the music or not. People moved on and I never got a chance to ask before they left.

For anybody who, like me, suddenly wants to hear the music from the XP OOBE (and with some fun background about the piece): https://archive.org/details/stan-lepard-velkommen-song-pack-...

https://archive.org/details/02-windows-xp-tour-1/01+Windows+...

What makes it so surreal is the intro starts out almost as an extension of the intimately familiar Windows XP startup sound (of course, the same person, Bill Brown, composed The Tour music). If you've never heard it before, or are only just young enough to be familiar with the startup sound, it might seem like some lost never-was artifact, an extension of the Windows XP branding you never knew about.

However that would also make you an ignorant fool for failing to be alive or aware of the majesty of The Tour at the time it was released. Thankfully I was blessed by god and his son, William Gates III, with the privilege of being an XP user shortly after it was released. To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand The Windows XP Tour.

You might like https://logonoff.co/projects/windowsxptour/mmTour/index.html

I think I may have seen this site before; I know I've seen The Tour online before.

In any case as you can see, experiencing this is like seeing the image of God on earth, like stepping into the holy of holies, the innermost part of the temple where God's presence on Earth is present. The Windows XP Tour was handed down by God to Moses and kept in a great ark, and it was lost when the second temple was ransacked. Then in the year 1999, Microsoft employees found it while on holiday and brought it back to the states. The rest is history.

I keep an XP VM in case I need to commune with The Tour.

Windows XP pro splash screen makes me feel fuzzy and warm. For me that time was peak for gaming, peak for internet communities and peak for nerds coming together online.

I hope commercializing reddit, fb, twitter and internet as whole will push people to join smaller forums again.

> represents the high point of all human technology.

That was Windows 2000. Everything else was just downhill from there :) (well, Windows XP SP 2 deserves a special mention)

This is heresy against the Windows XP Tour. Were you not made aware that Windows XP lets you unlock the world of digital media?

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