Solitaire (Windows, 1990)

Solitaire
Developer: Wes Cherry Publisher: Microsoft Platform: Windows Released internationally: May 22, 1990 This game has unused text.

Solitaire is very likely the most played game in offices around the world. The original version started out back in 1990 together with Windows 3.0 and was kept all the way to XP until Microsoft replaced it with a reworked version for Vista.

Retail Version

Game Number

A window in the game executable which allows you to type in a game number, like FreeCell...except Solitaire doesn't use game numbers in the retail version.

Assertion Failure

Also hidden in the game executable, but never appears. As above, it asks for the game number to be included with bug reports, which don't exist in the retail.

Unused Text

Unable to load bitmap; do you want to use a green background?

This message, which has been confirmed to be in the Win3.x, Win95/98/ME and XP versions, suggests that there was (or is) an option that allowed you to use a custom bitmap for the background image of the Solitaire window. It is unknown if there is a way to use or re-enable this feature.

Heck, I don't know
Configure Solitaire for screen shots
Force a win

These are leftover options from the debug menu. "Force a win" has a key combination assigned to it in the final game (Alt + Shift + 2), so you can still use it. However, you can re-add the other two to the menu, too. The first one does nothing, and the functionality of the second one has mostly been removed in the retail, so it just seems to freeze the game.

Interestingly, the first option is called "Hell, I don't know" in NT4, both in the debug and retail versions.

Print # of cards in each col

This string is left over from debugging, and not used in the retail game.

Back
Options
Bitmap

A set of options that are never used. Their purpose is unknown, but probably linked to the above-mentioned ability to set a bitmap as the background.

Debug Version

This special debug version was taken from the checked (aka "debug") version of NT4.

The debug menu is "hidden" between the Game and Help dropdown menus, just click there to reveal it.

• Set Game Number allows you to enter a specific game number to start a game. The debug version of Solitaire does use game numbers, and shows them prominently in the interface.
• 
  Print icrdMacs displays some numbers, as seen at the right. They display the amount of cards in this order:
  • The deck
  • The revealed cards of the deck
  • The suit stack
  • Each of the row stacks
• Force Win, well, forces a win.
• Assert Failure triggers the Assertion Failure window, shown above. While a sol.dbg is in fact generated, the file is completely empty. There is a sol.dbg containing text included with the Windows NT 4.0 source code, see the Notes page for more. Unlike what it says, the Exit Windows button does not induce a shutdown.
• Marquee Test appears to have no effect.
• Configure for screen shots hides the game number from the interface. This is probably there to hide this feature from screenshots released to the public.