microsoft
For the collection of solitaire games included starting with Windows 10, see Microsoft Solitaire Collection.

Solitaire is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game of the same name, also known as Klondike. Its original version was programmed by Wes Cherry, and the cards were designed by Susan Kare.

History

[icon] This section requires expansion.

Microsoft has included the game as part of its Windows product line since Windows 3.0 in 1990. The game was developed during the summer of 1988 by the intern Wes Cherry. The card deck itself was designed by Macintosh pioneer Susan Kare. Cherry's version was to include a boss key that would have switched the game to a fake Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, but he was asked to remove this from the final release.

Microsoft intended Solitaire "to soothe people intimidated by the operating system," and at a time when many users were still unfamiliar with graphical user interfaces, it proved useful in familiarizing them with the use of a mouse, such as the drag-and-drop technique required for moving cards.

According to Microsoft telemetry, Solitaire was among the three most-used Windows programs and FreeCell was seventh, ahead of Word and Excel. Lost business productivity by employees playing Solitaire has become a common concern since it became standard on Microsoft Windows. In 2006, a New York City worker was fired after Mayor Michael Bloomberg saw the Solitaire game on the man's office computer.

In October 2012, alongside the release of the Windows 8 operating system, Microsoft released a new version of Solitaire called Microsoft Solitaire Collection. This version – designed by Microsoft Studios, with visual design led by William Bredbeck, and developed by Arkadium – is ad-supported and introduced many new features to the game. As with the original release of the game, William Bredbeck is quoted as saying, "One of the intentions of the redesign was to introduce users to the novel changes incorporated in the new Windows 8 operating system". This design is still in use through Windows 11.

External links

Stub
Stub
This article is a stub, an article too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject. You can help the Microsoft Wiki by expanding it.