Proto:Minesweeper (Microsoft, PC)

In July 2010, Damien Moore discovered a prototype of Minesweeper in a collection of files uploaded to defunct BBSes. This build appears to be from late in development (as it is v2.9 while the final is v3.0), but there are some noticeable differences.

General

 * The game's title bar says "Win Mine" instead of "Minesweeper".
 * When playing on Expert difficulty, the size of the grid is 24&times;24 in the prototype (576 squares). This shrank to 16&times;30 (480 squares) in the final.
 * The "Fastest Mine Sweepers" and "Custom Field" dialogs and their respective menu items don't exist yet.
 * The ability to turn the game's color off isn't implemented yet.
 * The executable has symbols attached, at.

Icon
The game's icon was changed from a lit bomb to a mine.



There is also an unused placeholder icon of a barcode with the text "GENERIC ICON".

Tiles
The lit bombs were changed to mines, and the unlit bomb was changed to a flag.

Game
Mine 2.9 has a sound option (but doesn't have any sounds) and a preferences menu, both removed in the final. It also lacks the final's "Custom...", "Color", and "Best Times..." menu items.

Preferences


Mine 2.9 has a preferences menu that was removed in the final. It allows you to toggle most of the settings available in the "Game" menu, along with a few others.

Help
All of the menu items were renamed in the final, and "Keyboard" was replaced with "Search for Help On...".

About
The early "About" dialog is very different – the only signs of Microsoft involvement are in the names (Microsoft used the firstname-lastinitial format for their email addresses at the time, and probably to this day, and at the time people were generally referenced internally by that format too).

It also credits a "Larry H.", who goes uncredited in the final.