back to article Microsoft celebrates 25 years' SOLITARY SELF-PLEASURE with GROUP SESSION

May 18th marked the 25th anniversary of Microsoft giving the world its timewasting Solitaire app, so Redmond has come up with a fine way to celebrate – a card-clicking deathmatch for its staff. Redmond says “an internal competition among Microsoft employees kicks off today to determine who leads the leaderboards here”. That …

  1. Little Mouse
    WTF?

    Multiplayer Solitaire?

    Either they've changed the rules, or following this tournament will be like watching paint dry.

    1. oldcoder

      :)

      1. Losers get to keep their job? (because they spent more time working than playing....)

      2. Winners get to keep their job? (because #1 would make too much sense)

    2. Jedit Silver badge
      Terminator

      Multiplayer Solitaire?

      Maybe it's a speed run?

    3. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Depends on who you are

      If you are Catbert and you are in the process of selecting the next round of cullables, it will be immensely fascinating. Just take the top 10% of the leaderboard and hand them the pinkslips there and then.

    4. Trigonoceps occipitalis

      Multiplayer Solitaire

      Oxymoron?

  2. returnmyjedi

    The Solitaire collection is also available on Windows 8, as is Minesweeper. Just saying.

    1. DrXym

      I think it's on the store but not installed by default. Most of the Microsoft games have advertising which can be unlocked for a low-low price.

      1. PhilK
        FAIL

        Windows as a service

        Yes, you to can play Solitaire, Minesweeper and the rest of your favourite classic windows games Ad free in Windows 10 for only $11.99/year, each.

        What next, an annual fee to keep pop-up ads off my desktop?

        1. keith_w
          Unhappy

          Re: Windows as a service

          Based on my first view of Microsoft "Edge" where a "popup" ad appeared in a new tab, that is entirely possible

        2. P. Lee

          Re: Windows as a service

          >What next, an annual fee to keep pop-up ads off my desktop?

          Its called, "Skype for Business."

          Or run Linux and get skype ad-free.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Being picky...

      ...but the versions of Solitaire from Vista onwards are not the same as the earlier versions (trust me my dad complained about it all the time). However you card run the old version by getting an XP machine and copying a few files across and running them...also works on Linux in WINE.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Being picky...

        A good reason for keeping XP mode on Windows 7

      2. Elmer Phud

        Re: Being picky...

        They've sorted things out a bit now.

        The older one for W8 was sluggish and once a game was won on Freecell, the timer kept on until all the cards were stacked.

  3. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Going by just the headline I initially thought this was some sadistic redundancy scheme.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      it's Microsoft, not HP.

    2. bob, mon!
      Trollface

      @Martin Summers

      It's a SUBTLE sadistic redundancy scheme.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Have they fixed the bug

    whereby you sometimes see the same card in two different piles. Only one can't be moved, so you can't finish the game.

    I did screenshot it and email it to Microsoft, to no reply.

    15 years ago.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: Have they fixed the bug

      If you sent a screenshot, you most likely exceeded the 10k mail attachment size you had in those days.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Have they fixed the bug

        maybe he did it as ASCII art...

  5. 0765794e08
    Facepalm

    Not exactly aces up Microsoft's sleeve

    I don’t want to be a stick in the mud, but when they threw in Solitaire and Minesweeper it was pretty much the same time they threw out the BASIC interpreter. Not much to celebrate as far as I’m concerned!

    A game of Solitaire gives you, what, 15 minutes of repetitive fun? BASIC has kept me entertained (intellectually and creatively) for 32 years, and counting.

    Solitaire? Four king hell!

    1. Little Mouse

      Re: Not exactly aces up Microsoft's sleeve

      Please tell me you haven't been playing the bundled QBasic game with the gorilla throwing bananas for 32 years???

      1. 0765794e08
        Coat

        Re: Not exactly aces up Microsoft's sleeve

        How dare you Little Mouse! I’ve not been doing anything of the sort! Apart from Chuckie Egg…

        1. sabroni Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: gorilla.bas

          The monkey victory dance was popular where I worked at the time. Fixed a bug? Monkey victory dance!!

          Different times!!

        2. ThomH

          Re: Not exactly aces up Microsoft's sleeve @0765794e08

          I'm fairly sure QBasic was supplied with all consumer versions of Windows until they switched to the NT kernel with XP. So that's only fourteen years ago.

          It's absence is reasonably troubling, but not as bad as being chased by two simultaneous instances of the bird from the cage, at the same time as facing double ostriches. Or, worse, having to play the ZX Spectrum version with the messed-up physics.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Shooting the Moon

    Surely, if you are wanting a competition, The Hearts Network would be much more suitable. I particularly remember, you could make a regedit, and then see everyone's cards when you did a certain key combo. It took many weeks of lunchtimes before my colleagues caught on to that one. Ah, they were thick.

  7. Dr Scrum Master

    Where?

    Windows 8 users were spared having the game foisted on them by default, which may explain why the OS hasn't been well-received.

    This was the first thing I had to install after my wife got a Windows 8 laptop.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    But what about

    But what about Pinball?

    1. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: But what about

      And what about the Pinball Jingle, if you chose "music" rather than "sound"?

      Calculated to drive the whole office insane.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But what about

      This happened to it

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/20/vista_killed_pinball/

  9. Chris Holford
    Boffin

    Too late now.....

    -but isn't it really a version of 'patience'? Solitaire is a game played with marbles on dimpled board.

  10. Miss Config
    Linux

    Klondike Solitaire

    First, I'm always amused when people ask whether a user is into gaming, with the basis being how much computing power the user might actually need for a prospective laptop, for example. For me, the short answer is 'no'. I DO play Solitaire, but that is trivial in terms of computing power needed.

    Windows Solitaire was, I must admit, a guilty pleasure. But it used drive me mad, first, with the frequecy with which there would be two IDENTICAL cards ( such as BOTH red sevens, say ) after the initial deal. Usually I asked it to deal AGAIN ( and got another identical pair ). Then I'd get to a stage in the game where although I thought I was losing, I thought there was SOMETHING I might be able to do. However Windows refused to help me.

    ( btw, it kept my 'score' as winning 13% of the time. Which was nice. )

    That brought me to the Linux version which is something called KPatience which has several card games, the version most like Windows Solitaire being called Klondike. This is infinitely preferable to Windows' version. It holds your hand all the way and gives a running commentary. It says 'this game is winnable'; 'this game is lost' etc.

    What is frustrating is when I make several good moves and THEN it says 'this game is lost'.

    It even has a 'Hint' button that can say exactly where to move certain cards. It regularly tells me half a dozen card moves that I would otherwise manage to miss and in effect wins the game for me.

  11. Sparkypatrick

    Metro app versions are no use.

    I want to be able to play Spider Solitaire or Minesweeper while keeping an eye on my desktop. Bring back the desktop apps!

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like