Talk:List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products

Cwolfsheep 01:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This article should mention the Internet explorer easter eggs in the About: URI scheme

Hover! Easter Egg

I would love to know more about the Hover Easter egg. Does anyone know how to do it? -Hamster2.0 13:18, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Notepad

I added information about the Notepad easter egg. Thedarkfreak 22:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

And I removed it. It's not an "easter egg", it's an unintended behaviour. Read about it here. -/- Warren 01:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that may be, but I still believe it's an easter egg because of the way it works. When you save it and look at it in a hexeditor, it does not have the Unicode marker, nor the null characters that would cause the faulty routine to identify it as Unicode. It's in regular ANSI, but when you open it in Notepad, it gets "hidden". Thedarkfreak 22:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a programming error, no more and no less. --Darkstar 10:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup

I've done a bit of a cleanup and removed the cleanup tag. If there are any other aspects of this article that need a cleanup, please list them here. peterl 20:35, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

XP

I noticed a section titled "Windows XP" that described how to double click the gray region of Task Manager to hide the menu bar and view the processor and memory utilization graphs. IMHO, this isn't an "Easter egg" but is instead just one of those handy built in features that serves an actual, albeit limited, purpose (as opposed to, for example, a video game hidden in Excel). I deleted it.

The bit on the Task Manager was restored by someone, I've since removed it too, along with the decidedly untrue comment about how "Bush hid the facts" in Notepad, as we know, it's a quirk in the way Notepad detects multibyte character sets.Thedarkfreak, please don't post this crap again. W3bbo 23:02, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

WebTV

There were a few codes which, when punched into the remote control of a Microsoft WebTV while the unit was turned off, would activate various functions. I think 32768 reset the settings on some of these boxes, but the most notable was one where typing 867 5309 would cause the unit to 'phone home to MS for a firmware update. --66.102.80.239 19:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

MIcrosoft Word Egg (rand())

The rand function is not a diagnostic, rather it is used in templates to fill textboxes or sections with text, to display their size clearly. This also happens in Publisher, albeit more frequently. Indomaster 23:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This feature still works in the (german) 365-Edition. Boschmi (talk) 08:14, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a how-to guide

See WP:NOT, which is policy. Despite this, it shows us how to make the Easter eggs work. Thoughts?--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 03:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

This is an easy one. Just because Wikipedia is not a how-to guide does not mean that an article cannot have how-to sections that have encyclopedic value. (This is a spin-out article, and is, thus, just a section). If we are going to take the time to list every Easter egg available in Microsoft products (which that might be a problem), it would be unencyclopedic not to include instructions.

There isn't much else to discuss. Here's how you do it, and here's what happens is pretty much the entire point of any secondary resource about specific Easter eggs. (Note that Wikipedia, as a tertiary source, is still a secondary source).

A quick look at WP:NOT explains your confusion. It is poorly written in this regard. See my comments on it. -- trlkly 16:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes there are policies, style manuals and guidelines, but there is also the fundamental principle where there are not firm rules. The article's very nature makes it a favorable candidate to consider an exception. The past six months show considerable progress regarding "how-to" content. Perhaps this article is a candidate for the "{{humor}}" tag instead? MornMore (talk) 06:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Not an Easter Egg

In the <Windows install directory>\MEDIA\ directory there are three MIDI files: onestop.mid; flourish.mid and town.mid. The audio files listed are in Windows XP and Windows Vista.

That's not an easter egg by any stretch of the defintion (in my opinion). Douglas (talk) 03:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

onestop.mid has been explained by Microsoft's Raymond Chen in his blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/02/12/10392805.aspx. It was requested by the product support team at Microsoft so that they could troubleshoot MIDI playback problems. 12.238.6.123 (talk) 15:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I've taken the WP:BOLD step to update the article --50.47.192.95 (talk) 18:50, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Hovergallery.png

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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --16:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Word rand

In the section about the =rand() in Microsoft word, an example is given.

"Example for this =rand(10,1800) will produce 370,000 words on 509 pages."

I actually tried this on Microsoft Word 2007, and as a result, it almost crashed my computer. Then I tried to run spelling and grammar check on it with it checking passive sentences and two spaces required in between sentences. Ultimately, it crashed Microsoft Word and lagged my whole computer for a few minutes. I wasn't too happy. Can we use an example with smaller numbers, not this extreme one? bdodo1992 (talk) 02:31, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

The text for =rand() has been changed in Word 2013. Gparyani (talk) 20:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Vista easter eggs

How is running screen savers from the command prompt an easter egg? It's not like they're normally hidden. In fact, I'm not sure if I'd call any of the ones in the Vista section easter eggs. 128.36.45.112 (talk) 00:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I've deleted the one you mention and the media one as they are clearly not hidden features. I haven't tested the others but I think you're probably right. Halsteadk (talk) 18:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

The vista section has disabling graphical boot as an Easter egg, is this not just a documented feature? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.228.110 (talk) 00:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Windows XP Hidden Song

There is a hidden song in Windows XP. You serch for a media file named title in hidden files. It is a song in XP's system files. It seem like an easter egg, why isn't it here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.60.8 (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That song is not hidden, it is used during the installation of Windows XP. If you bought your computer with windows already installed then you probably never got to hear it normally. -J —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.96.156 (talk) 20:34, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

WTF...

Why does it say you need to either remove or move how-to content? What good is a page of Easter eggs in Microsoft products without any mention of how to get them? I'll remove that notice. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheGreenMartian (talk • contribs) 02:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And I've put it back. The article should provide a brief statement that the Easter Egg exists and link to the instructions elsewhere, not reproduce them step-by-step. WP:NOTAMANUAL Halsteadk (talk) 13:56, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Translate into Russian

Please, translate this page for Russian Wikipedia. I think, Russian users would be interested in this page. (I am from Russia) BLaDimir N. (talk) 16:58, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

The Hall of Tortured Souls

We need a screen shot.-_- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.51.113 (talk) 15:28, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

You forgot...

The easter egg song you can find on all XP systems called "title" you can find it under your system32 folder => oobe => images

it would originally be used on the setup of XP but the idea got cancelled for some reason, the song is still available on XP systems though — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.82.218.57 (talk) 11:44, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Съешь ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей чаю.

The Russian version of Word 2003 shows instead of the quick brown fox:

   Съешь ещё этих мягких французских булок, да выпей чаю.

(Take more these soft French buns and have a cup of tea.) 37.52.239.194 (talk) 17:18, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Phone Dialer

I'm not sure of the versions that Phone Dialer is documented in (currently page says 95-98). Gparyani (talk) 19:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Do preview versions of Windows count?

Windows 10 build 14232 has an easter egg where the application crash dialog has been replaced with "Windows is opening a portal to another dimension" BFeely (talk) 18:44, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

References

Added Clippy

I've added a little hidden easter egg in Office 2016 products that allows you to see Clippy. Then I renamed him to Clippt, his actual name according to Office Assistant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starsky135 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

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