How-To

Make Windows Play A Favorite Song or Video When You Log On

By Brian Burgess

Updated June 16, 2021

If you want to spruce up what happens when you log on to Windows, why not have your favorite song or video play? Here’s how to do it using Task Scheduler.

Are you tired of hearing the same old Windows chimes every time you power up your computer and log on? It’s easy to customize the sounds or disable them completely. But why not shake things up and make Windows play your favorite song or video? Here’s how to use Task Scheduler.

Play Song When Logging into Windows

There’s a lot of cool things you can do with Task Scheduler. Recently we showed you how to create a basic task to turn your PC into an ultimate alarm clock and play a video, music, or podcast when you wake up. To create a basic task, check out this article on making Windows run Disk Cleanup automatically.

To play a song when you log on, start by creating a basic task and work through the wizard; after giving it a name, for the Trigger, select When I log On.

Then for the Action, select Start a Program.

Next, for the Program/Script field, browse to the location of the music player you want to use. If you want to keep it, all Windows just browse to Windows Media Player. Or, in this example, I’m using my favorite all-around media player VLC.

For the Add Arguments filed, copy in the full path to the music or video file you want to play.

Note: For best results, make sure there are no spaces in the path to the music or video file you want to play. Otherwise, you’ll probably get an error that it can’t play the file.

To verify you set the task correctly, open the Task Scheduler Library, right-click the task and select Run.

Now when you log on to your account, the video or music file you selected will play. Another thing to keep in mind is that the task will run each time you log on, not just when you power on your system for the first time.