Windows 7 was released by Microsoft in 2009, and its system sounds became instantly familiar to millions of PC users who heard them while starting up, receiving notifications or closing programs. As the operating system aged, clips from its sound library were ripped, shared on soundboards and reused in YouTube videos, memes and streams as shorthand for early 2010s computing. Like a simple ding sound effect, this tone is still used because it is instantly recognisable, clean and loaded with nostalgia for a specific era of desktop computers.