Microsoft Solitaire Turned 30 Years Old Friday and Still has 35 Million Monthly Players:
35 million people still play Solitaire monthly, according to Microsoft, with more than 100 million hands played daily around the world.
Microsoft Solitaire was originally included as part of Windows 3.0 back in 1990, designed specifically to teach users how to use a mouse. Grabbing virtual cards and dropping them in place taught the basics of drag-and-drop in Windows, which we still use today in many parts of the operating system.
[...] originally known as Windows Solitaire, [it] is one of the most played games in the world as it shipped in every version of Windows for more than two decades. That means it has shipped on more than a billion PCs, and it only stopped being a dedicated part of Windows with the release of Windows 8 in 2012.
Microsoft intern Wes Cherry initially programmed the game, and pixel art and Mac GUI pioneer Susan Kare designed the original card deck. Cherry initially programmed a "boss mode" into Windows Solitaire, with a fake spreadsheet designed to fool bosses and coworkers. Microsoft made Cherry remove the boss mode from the game before its release. If it had remained, it could have saved one man from being fired by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Common Joe on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:14AM (3 children)
When my spouse got a Windows 10 machine, she was disappointed that it no longer came with Solitaire. It's her way to mindlessly pass the time and relax. I had to go hunt down another version.
For those who have interested spouses (or if you're a closet fan yourself), you can get a good Solitaire game for Windows for free at Portable Apps [portableapps.com]. There's also a Linux version and it's supposedly open source, although I didn't see the code when I poked around for a moment.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:31PM
Just grab a copy of sol.exe from a Windows XP computer, works fine on newer Windows versions. It's been awhile since I last did this and it may also want a .dll or two(?), plenty of info if you search.
I tried some of the alternatives and didn't like them as much as the original. The thing that really cheesed me off was that with Win7 (iirc), M$ offers to sell a game pack to get Solitare back.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2020, @12:44AM (1 child)
It depends on what you mean by "not coming with Solitaire." The "solitaire collection" came with it, and was all over the news because it had ads in it. So many people consider that to "not come with solitaire."
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday May 25 2020, @03:17AM
I meant you have to be online, logged in, receiving ads, and at the mercy of of another entity -- all to play a stupid-simple card game that was freely given to us starting with Windows 95.
I meant, when I or my wife relax and looking to get away from the world, we don't want to recieve reminders that we don't control our computer, and that we must give proper homage to our overlords who do. Homage is defined as giving up personal information about ourselves and consuming in-your-face ads so that we can play a game that long predates the computer age.
An online, ad-ridden version of solitaire is not solitaire in my opinion It's cultural and personality-centered suicide.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:46AM (1 child)
And every version cheats. The first square you click is never a mine.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 24 2020, @12:52PM
It kind of has to be, otherwise it's a bit of a shit game if the first click makes (or could make) you lose the game. So they have to have that as the starting off point to set the stage.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday May 24 2020, @01:19PM
Now why doesn't that surprise me?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2, Informative) by C0L0PH0N on Sunday May 24 2020, @01:45PM
If you search enough, you can find an install file for the original Windows 7 games, including Chess, FreeCell, Hearts, Mahjong, Minesweeper, Purble Palace, Solitaire and Spider Solitaire. Microsoft apparently doesn't want folks to play these games (no money?) so during the twice-yearly feature updates, they are removed. But a quick reinstall fixes that, and keeps the settings. (Hint: So, KEEP the install file handy!) I have done this on Windows 10 for years. Prefer the original Spider Solitaire myself, and Chess is fun once in a while. But they are all still available in one install file. The copy I have is at least currently available at Winaero. Search for "Windows 7 Games for Windows 10 and 8 Winaero". It works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:23PM (3 children)
How does Microsoft know that there are this many players per month?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @05:38PM
Telemetrics. Sounds so technically clinical.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:47PM (1 child)
Microsoft knows when you cheat at solitaire. It's in your profile stored in a subterranean data storage facility outside of Redmond. And they will expose it if you challenge their hegemony. Bwahahaha.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @07:58PM
If you're really good at cheating do they make you CEO?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:47PM
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Boomers did COVID-19.