I upgraded my phone to the new Windows 7.5 Mango release yesterday (9/29/2011) and have begun to find some of the cool new features included in the release.  One of the features I (and everyone else) have really wanted is the ability to create custom ringtones.  I never had a problem doing with with Windows Mobile 5 and 6, so Windows 7 was a step backwards (for this and many other features).

If you have any comments about Zune, I’d like to know what you think.  I personally think it sucks, the user interface is horrible, and it flickers around all the time trying to show me @#$% that I care nothing about…but maybe that’s because I’m old and cranky.

Well, I created my first custom ringtone tonight.  Here are the steps.

• Create an audio file that is < 30 seconds and < 1Mb in size
• Convert the audio file to WMA format.  I used this free converter.  One thing to be aware of if you install this is that it will try and install a toolbar and default search engine (lame marketing). 
• Edit the properties of the audio file in Zune and make the Genre “Ringtone.”  This is key to making it an available ringtone.

• Sync the file to your device.  You should be able to do this by dragging and dropping the song file to your device.

• There should now be a Custom section in your ringtones and your new file should now show up as a selectable ringtone.

Rock on with some Donna Fargo!