What Easter eggs and secrets were hidden in Microsoft products that have sunk into oblivion (8 photos + 3 videos)

Yes, before the grass was greener and programmers were more fun. Unfortunately, the era of secret signs, hidden games and other fun features has gone unnoticed. And now is the time to remember and wax nostalgic about the “Easter eggs” that would help brighten up self-isolation at least a little today.





Even the author of faceless computer programs wants to leave his mark on history and tell the city and the world that “Vasya was here.” This is how “Easter eggs” appeared, which are secret signs left by the creators of a computer game or some software. They usually carry personal information such as his name, an iconic phrase, a symbol or an image.

Until recently, Microsoft fully welcomed and cultivated the innocent fun of its programmers. And these fun Easter eggs have long become classics. Nowadays they don't make these anymore. Therefore, it’s time to remember vintage secrets from Microsoft and be sad about a bygone era.

Microsoft Excel'95: Hall of Tortured Souls



After performing a few simple manipulations in Excel'95, the user found himself in a secret space called the Hall of Tortured Souls. This room has several pools of some kind of green liquid, a ceiling with black panels, blue columns on the sides and gray tiled walls. Strange, but not a very gloomy sight for such a name of the hall.

However, that's not all. Having walked forward through a dark doorway, the user found himself in a dark nook, along the walls of which the names of tortured developers flow down like bloody titles.

But that’s not all, after writing the secret code EXCELFKA, the user goes into another room, where on the walls you can admire photographs of the “fallen” developers.

Excel'97: flight simulator





After performing several secret actions, the user sees the artificial horizon in front of him, “flying” over the mountain landscape. At some point in the frame there is an inclined slope with the names of the creators of the Excel'97 program.

Interesting fact: after the press learned about this Easter egg and spread the news, interest in the program increased significantly.



Word'97: Pinball



The Word developers also decided to keep up with their colleagues and added a simple pinball game to the text editor. True, 2/3 of the screen was not occupied by the game, but by the names of the programmers. However, pinball was created so that the user would not be bored while the credits with the names of the developers floated by. Such concern!

Excel 2000: racing simulator



But secret games are still a feature of Excel developers. In the 2000 version of the program, programmers included an entire 3D racing and shooting game that was reminiscent of the classic arcade game Spy Hunter.

Unfortunately, we can now only guess how complex hidden games in Microsoft software could become, since this version of Excel was the last to contain Easter eggs. Now, according to insiders, the company’s management for some reason no longer allows the introduction of third-party codes into its software.



Windows 3.1: Teddy Bear



This bear has quite a funny story. While working on the product, one of the developers for some reason constantly carried a teddy bear with him. Over time, the toy turned into a meme and the mascot of the development team. Therefore, everyone who found the Easter egg saw a strange bear in a yellow jacket, pointing with its paw at the developers' credits.

"Easter egg" that penetrated reality



“Easter eggs” are found not only in software, but sometimes they penetrate into real life. One Spanish blogger discovered a microdot on the branded packaging of the Windows Vista operating system. The dot was less than one millimeter in diameter and contained a photograph of three Microsoft anti-piracy employees. Of course, the “pirates” had never heard of such a trick from the developers. And she is! Here one can only envy the observation and visual acuity of this Spanish blogger.

What Easter eggs do you remember?

For example, there is also this (not exactly an Easter egg, but still): in Windows (even in Windows 10) you cannot create a file or folder called “Con”. There is a legend according to which this word, which denotes a nerd and a crammer, was used to call Bill Gates in his childhood. And so the traumatized Bill decided that this word would never appear in his software.



But in reality this is nothing more than a legend. It's just that even before the advent of Windows, the MS-DOS operating system made it possible to access some devices in the same way as files - by their name. Therefore, some specific names were reserved by the system. In particular, CON is short for CONSOLE (console for data entry). There is also a unique name for the printer (PRN), system speaker (AUX). Today no one uses this functionality anymore, but in Windows they remain as a rudiment.