Easter eggs in Microsoft products
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Some of Microsoft's early products included hidden Easter eggs.
Microsoft formally stopped including Easter eggs in its programs as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative in 2002.
Microsoft Bear
Drawing of the Bear was the icon for some Windows system filesThe Microsoft Bear is one famous mascot of the Windows 3.1 (and later Windows 95) team. It was the teddy bear that one of the senior developers on the team used to carry around. He makes several cameo appearances in Windows:
A drawing of him was used as the icon for the SETDEBUG.EXE and JDBGMGR.EXE system files. The odd icon gave credibility to the jdbgmgr.exe virus hoax, claiming that the files were part of a virus. See SULFNBK.EXE for a similar hoax.
Several internal system functions, although having meaningful internal names, are exported from USER.EXE as BEARNNN (where NNN is the ordinal number of the function) in his honor (and to discourage their use from uncautious third party software developers).
He stars
Microsoft Bear appearance in an easter egg
in two distinct easter eggs in Windows 3.1. The first one was the reference to a fictitious file named BEAR.EXE, and in the other one the Bear, along with Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Brad Silverberg, presents the email aliases of the Windows 3.1 developers. bradsi, being in charge of Windows production, is listed first (see picture); the three other presenters, billg, steveb, and t-bear, appear together in "Special Thanks", the last section of the list.
in two distinct easter eggs in Windows 3.1. The first one was the reference to a fictitious file named BEAR.EXE, and in the other one the Bear, along with Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Brad Silverberg, presents the email aliases of the Windows 3.1 developers. bradsi, being in charge of Windows production, is listed first (see picture); the three other presenters, billg, steveb, and t-bear, appear together in "Special Thanks", the last section of the list.
Microsoft Bunny
During the development of Microsoft Windows 95 the shell developers had several stuffed animals as mascots. One was Bear, who was a hold-over from Windows 3.1. There were two different bunnies as well: the smaller one called 16-bit Bunny and the larger one called 32-bit Bunny. The naming is connected to the fact that Windows 95 was the transitional OS between the 16-bit era of Windows 3.x and the new 32-bit era.
Windows 95 was designed to run on very minimal computing resources even for that time: a 386 with 4 MB of RAM. During the development, it was decided to remove features that drastically affected the performance on these low-end computers. These removed features, along with enhancements to other features and games, went into the Plus! Pack, which had much higher system requirements than the base operating system.
In the case of the 32-bit Bunny, knowledge of it was actually somewhat useful to end-users. These features needed to be turned on while Windows 95 was tested and the secret of turning them on was not removed. Some of the desktop features, including full window drag and anti-aliased fonts, could be turned on by placing the line ILOVEBUNNY32=1 under the windows section in win.ini.
Just like the Bear, the Bunny has an exported function named after him. This time, it's BUNNY_351 in krnl386.exe.
Microsoft Office
Word for Windows 2
In Word for Windows 2, there is a simple animation involving a WordPerfect 'Monster', a fireworks display and credits roll in the About box. Although simple animation, it was taxing for hardware of the day, and no timing loops were included in the code. As a result, the firework display is too quick to see properly on a 486 or higher machine. It is accessed by:
1. Open a new document.
2. From the Tools menu, click Macro, then select Record Macro.
3. Name the macro SPIFF, and click OK.
4. Again from the Tools menu, select Stop Recorder, then Macro, and click SPIFF.
5. Click Edit, then delete the lines "Sub Main" and "End Sub".
6. From the File menu, choose Close.
7. Click Yes, indicating you want to save the changes.
8. Open the Help menu, then click About Microsoft Word.
9. Click the Word logo icon in the upper-left corner.
Office 6.0/95
The tip of the day sometimes would display the following fun and inspirational tips. They could also be viewed in the help file.
If you do your best, whatever happens will be for the best.
Things that go away by themselves can come back by themselves.
Plaid shirts and striped pants rarely make a positive fashion statement.
You should never dive into murky waters.
It's never too late to learn to play the piano.
You can hurt yourself if you run with scissors.
You should never look directly at the sun.
This is the last tip.
Microsoft Excel contained a hidden Doom-like mini-game called "The Hall of Tortured Souls".
If you do your best, whatever happens will be for the best.
Things that go away by themselves can come back by themselves.
Plaid shirts and striped pants rarely make a positive fashion statement.
You should never dive into murky waters.
It's never too late to learn to play the piano.
You can hurt yourself if you run with scissors.
You should never look directly at the sun.
This is the last tip.
Microsoft Excel contained a hidden Doom-like mini-game called "The Hall of Tortured Souls".
Office 97
Microsoft Excel contained a hidden flight simulator - http://www.eeggs.com/items/718.html for accessing directions.
Microsoft Word contained a hidden pinball game.
The Word 97 Pinball.
Microsoft Access contained a hidden simulation of the Magic 8 Ball toy.
Office 2000
Following in the tradition of hiding a small game in Microsoft Office programs, using Microsoft Excel 2000 and the Microsoft Office Web Components, a small 3-D game called "Dev Hunter" (inspired by Spy Hunter) is accessible. DirectX must be installed for this to work, and the egg is incompatible with certain service pack upgrades. This easter egg can be activated by performing the following steps:
Open a new Excel book.
Go to the File menu and select 'Save As Webpage'.
In the dialog box for Save As, select 'Selection: Sheet' and check the box labeled 'Add Interactivity'.
Click the 'Publish' button (file name is irrelevant).
On the Publish dialog box that appears, simply click the 'Publish' button again.
Open the .htm file that was created in Microsoft Internet Explorer (it should appear as a blank page with an Excel spreadsheet in the centre- if it doesn't, you likely don't have the Microsoft Office Web Components installed).
Scroll to the cell in row 2000, column WC. Align the spreadsheet so this cell is the first cell on the left. Select the whole row, with the cell in column WC sub-selected (it will be white, while the rest of the row will be colored light purple).
Hold down the Shift, Control, and Alt keys and left-click on the Office logo (the square composed of puzzle pieces).
The Dev Hunter game should now open. The car can be controlled using the arrow keys, the spacebar fires projectiles, and the 'H' and 'O' keys activate headlights and an oilslick, respectively. Developer credits and humorous sentences appear on the roadway. Interestingly, collisions between the car the user controls and other cars, as well as collisions between the other cars themselves, appear to correctly follow the principle of Conservation of Momentum.
Windows
Do the following precisely:
Right-click on an empty area of the Desktop, and select "New > Folder" from the context menu.
Type the name of the folder as "and now, the moment you've all been waiting for" (exactly as shown, without the quotes).
Right-click on the folder, choose Rename; type "we proudly present for your viewing pleasure".
Right-click on the folder again, choose Rename; type "The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!".
If done correctly, this will have the following effects:
A file called
Click on the folder shortly after creating it, and you will get an animated presentation of the Win95 developers. If you have a working soundcard, the Clouds music will play as the background of the presentation.
The folder doesn't remain special indefinitely.
Windows 98
Windows 98 credits egg
Windows 98 has a credits screen easter egg.There are two ways to view it. One involves the Date/Time properties dialog box, but the more straightforward method is listed below:
Create a shortcut to the Weldata.exe program in the C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Welcome directory.
Right-click on the shortcut and open the Properties dialog box.
In the target path field, add the text "You_are_a_real_rascal" to the end of the path (without the quotes).
In the Run field, select Minimized.
After making these changes, double-click on the shortcut and the credits egg should open.
Windows 98 has a credits screen easter egg.There are two ways to view it. One involves the Date/Time properties dialog box, but the more straightforward method is listed below:
Create a shortcut to the Weldata.exe program in the C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Welcome directory.
Right-click on the shortcut and open the Properties dialog box.
In the target path field, add the text "You_are_a_real_rascal" to the end of the path (without the quotes).
In the Run field, select Minimized.
After making these changes, double-click on the shortcut and the credits egg should open.
Windows Vista
Three images are embedded in the surface of Windows Vista's installation DVD. According to Computing World one is the faces of persons behind the Microsoft's antipiracy team who worked in the hologram.
Internet Explorer
The Easter egg hidden in Microsoft Internet Explorer can only be displayed in Internet Explorer 4.0; however, the relevant HTML code has been present in all the subsequent versions as well -- even though Microsoft "officially" claimed there are no Easter eggs in Internet Explorer 7.
To view this easter egg in IE4, go into the Help menu and select the "About Internet Explorer" option. Hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and drag the blue IE logo over the globe icon, then from left to right, pushing the words off of the screen. Click the newly exposed "Unlock" button, which will cause the globe icon to shake. Hold the Ctrl key down again and drag the IE logo onto the shaking globe. The Internet Explorer 4.0 team credits will roll in a new window, with occasional intermissions containing various in-jokes, such as a reference to the Bear and Bunny (both mentioned above) in the very end of the credits text: "Disclaimer: No fluffy warm creatures were maimed, dismembered, tortured, deplumed, discarded, deflowered, dropped, twisted, wrungOut, extended, respliced, broken, humiliated, irradiated, browbeaten, pickled, deluded, duped, detained, mishandled, desiccated, bronzed, belittled, coddled, expelled, deported, imbibed, elected, marginalized, placated, misrepresented, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, prepackaged, overly petted, genetically altered or cloned during the making of this product, except of course for Bunny and Bear" (punctuation added for clarity)
To access the credits page in MSIE 5.5 or newer, do the following:
Open Internet Explorer and type in res://shdoclc.dll/wcee.htm then click Go.
When it loads, a black page appears. Right click and select View Source - it opens in Notepad.
Find in this text: gurjPRR. This will find 2 lines of text including If, DecodeStr and return. Highlight and delete them.
Now save this text file as wcee[1].html
Open the HTML file you saved, and it will show the credits.
Alternately, open res://shdoclc.dll/wcee.htm and paste the URL "javascript:void(window.name="TheWCEE")" into the address bar, hit enter, and then refresh the page (F5) and the credits will start without needing to change anything else.
There are several other things in the code of the credits page, including:
The ESC key is trapped, so that if the user presses it, the tab in IE 7 is closed (the user will be prompted.)
There is an image link for ierocks.gif in the upper left-hand corner. It doesn't exist on XP SP2, so only a broken image placeholder is shown.
You can slow down the text scrolling by searching for the line window.setTimeout( "AnimMoveName(" + iDiv + ");", 0 ); . Change the 0 to a higher value (75 seems to be slow enough to read, though there's a lot of text.)
You can copy and paste the entire text by editing the HTML. Search for the lines that read:// Disable dragging to prevent the user from selecting text in the tips area.return false;In order to copy the text on the page for reading, place a semicolon at the start of the return false line (so that it reads ;return false;), which will allow you to right-mouse-click on the page, where you can click Select All and then paste the contents into Notepad.
The entire scrolling text is contained in 20 lines (numbered 0 to 19) of a HashTable. All the developers names are sorted alphabetically by first name.
IE will turn blue if one asks it about its main rival Mozilla - by simply typing about:mozilla into the address bar, one will see an all blue background. Note: about:mozilla is a well known easter egg in Mozilla and Netscape browsers.
To view this easter egg in IE4, go into the Help menu and select the "About Internet Explorer" option. Hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and drag the blue IE logo over the globe icon, then from left to right, pushing the words off of the screen. Click the newly exposed "Unlock" button, which will cause the globe icon to shake. Hold the Ctrl key down again and drag the IE logo onto the shaking globe. The Internet Explorer 4.0 team credits will roll in a new window, with occasional intermissions containing various in-jokes, such as a reference to the Bear and Bunny (both mentioned above) in the very end of the credits text: "Disclaimer: No fluffy warm creatures were maimed, dismembered, tortured, deplumed, discarded, deflowered, dropped, twisted, wrungOut, extended, respliced, broken, humiliated, irradiated, browbeaten, pickled, deluded, duped, detained, mishandled, desiccated, bronzed, belittled, coddled, expelled, deported, imbibed, elected, marginalized, placated, misrepresented, overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, prepackaged, overly petted, genetically altered or cloned during the making of this product, except of course for Bunny and Bear" (punctuation added for clarity)
To access the credits page in MSIE 5.5 or newer, do the following:
Open Internet Explorer and type in res://shdoclc.dll/wcee.htm then click Go.
When it loads, a black page appears. Right click and select View Source - it opens in Notepad.
Find in this text: gurjPRR. This will find 2 lines of text including If, DecodeStr and return. Highlight and delete them.
Now save this text file as wcee[1].html
Open the HTML file you saved, and it will show the credits.
Alternately, open res://shdoclc.dll/wcee.htm and paste the URL "javascript:void(window.name="TheWCEE")" into the address bar, hit enter, and then refresh the page (F5) and the credits will start without needing to change anything else.
There are several other things in the code of the credits page, including:
The ESC key is trapped, so that if the user presses it, the tab in IE 7 is closed (the user will be prompted.)
There is an image link for ierocks.gif in the upper left-hand corner. It doesn't exist on XP SP2, so only a broken image placeholder is shown.
You can slow down the text scrolling by searching for the line window.setTimeout( "AnimMoveName(" + iDiv + ");", 0 ); . Change the 0 to a higher value (75 seems to be slow enough to read, though there's a lot of text.)
You can copy and paste the entire text by editing the HTML. Search for the lines that read:// Disable dragging to prevent the user from selecting text in the tips area.return false;In order to copy the text on the page for reading, place a semicolon at the start of the return false line (so that it reads ;return false;), which will allow you to right-mouse-click on the page, where you can click Select All and then paste the contents into Notepad.
The entire scrolling text is contained in 20 lines (numbered 0 to 19) of a HashTable. All the developers names are sorted alphabetically by first name.
IE will turn blue if one asks it about its main rival Mozilla - by simply typing about:mozilla into the address bar, one will see an all blue background. Note: about:mozilla is a well known easter egg in Mozilla and Netscape browsers.
The about:mozilla link was disabled in SP2 of Windows XP; however, the file [res://mshtml.dll/about.moz] still exists, for those who wish to re-enable the link add a string value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs called mozilla with the value res://mshtml.dll/about.moz
Hover!
Hover! is a video game that came bundled with the CD version of Windows 95. It was a showcase for the advanced multimedia capabilities available on personal computers at the time. It is still available from Microsoft and can be run on all of Microsoft's operating systems released since Windows 95 including Windows Vista.
One level (shown as "small.maz" in the mazes directory of the game) is used as the introduction level shown when the game finishes starting up. If the player presses and holds "Ctrl+Shift+IBMAB" ("Bambi" backwards, "Bambi" was the code name for the project), he can unlock the level and drive around in it. There are pictures of everyone involved with the Hover! project along the maze walls.
Features often misunderstood to be Easter eggs
The following are not Easter eggs, but rather features unexpected to many users of Microsoft products.
One level (shown as "small.maz" in the mazes directory of the game) is used as the introduction level shown when the game finishes starting up. If the player presses and holds "Ctrl+Shift+IBMAB" ("Bambi" backwards, "Bambi" was the code name for the project), he can unlock the level and drive around in it. There are pictures of everyone involved with the Hover! project along the maze walls.
Features often misunderstood to be Easter eggs
The following are not Easter eggs, but rather features unexpected to many users of Microsoft products.
Microsoft Word
Every version of Microsoft Word from 97 to 2003 contains what is apparently a hidden diagnostic feature: typing =rand() in a Word document and hitting Enter results in 3 paragraphs of 5 repetitions of the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". Typing =rand(X,Y) (with numbers for X and Y) results in X paragraphs of Y repetitions of the sentence. For example, =rand(10,10) will produce ten paragraphs, each with ten repetitions. Microsoft has officially described this as a feature and not an Easter egg.
In the Traditional Chinese Edition, the function returns the phrase 機會稍縱即逝, roughly translated as carpe diem.
In German it's "Franz jagt im komplett verwahrlosten Taxi quer durch Bayern.", translated as "Franz is hunting in a completely lost taxi all through Bavaria".
In Spanish it's "El veloz murciélago hindú comía feliz cardillo y kiwi.", translated as "The quick Hindu bat happily ate cardillo and kiwi".
In Polish it's "Pchnąć w tę łódź jeża lub osiem skrzyń fig", translated as "Push into this boat a hedgehog or eight boxes of figs".
In Korean it's "무궁화꽃이 활짝 피었습니다", translated as "Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus--a Korean national symbol) Bloomed brightly".
In [Microsoft Word 2007]], the repeated sentence is replaced with a longer text:
“ On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When you create pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current document look.
You can easily change the formatting of selected text in the document text by choosing a look for the selected text from the Quick Styles gallery on the Home tab. You can also format text directly by using the other controls on the Home tab. Most controls offer a choice of using the look from the current theme or using a format that you specify directly. To change the overall look of your document, choose new Theme elements on the Page Layout tab. To change the looks available in the Quick Style gallery, use the Change Current Quick Style Set command. Both the Themes gallery and the Quick Styles gallery provide reset commands so that you can always restore the look of your document to the original contained in your current template. ”
Furthermore, the addition of numbers in the form =rand(X,Y) display different tips according to the (x,y) combination. However on Microsoft 2008 Mac the sentence is the same as the previous Microsoft editions.
In the Traditional Chinese Edition, the function returns the phrase 機會稍縱即逝, roughly translated as carpe diem.
In German it's "Franz jagt im komplett verwahrlosten Taxi quer durch Bayern.", translated as "Franz is hunting in a completely lost taxi all through Bavaria".
In Spanish it's "El veloz murciélago hindú comía feliz cardillo y kiwi.", translated as "The quick Hindu bat happily ate cardillo and kiwi".
In Polish it's "Pchnąć w tę łódź jeża lub osiem skrzyń fig", translated as "Push into this boat a hedgehog or eight boxes of figs".
In Korean it's "무궁화꽃이 활짝 피었습니다", translated as "Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus--a Korean national symbol) Bloomed brightly".
In [Microsoft Word 2007]], the repeated sentence is replaced with a longer text:
“ On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When you create pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current document look.
You can easily change the formatting of selected text in the document text by choosing a look for the selected text from the Quick Styles gallery on the Home tab. You can also format text directly by using the other controls on the Home tab. Most controls offer a choice of using the look from the current theme or using a format that you specify directly. To change the overall look of your document, choose new Theme elements on the Page Layout tab. To change the looks available in the Quick Style gallery, use the Change Current Quick Style Set command. Both the Themes gallery and the Quick Styles gallery provide reset commands so that you can always restore the look of your document to the original contained in your current template. ”
Furthermore, the addition of numbers in the form =rand(X,Y) display different tips according to the (x,y) combination. However on Microsoft 2008 Mac the sentence is the same as the previous Microsoft editions.
Microsoft Excel
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