This week’s episode of Cash Cab: After Dark had a solitaire question.
For the unfamiliar, the Discovery Channel airs a unique trivia show, Cash Cab, along with its new variant, Cash Cab: After Dark, in which people climb into a New York City taxicab and unexpectedly become contestants on a game show, winning money for each correct answer en route to their destination. The catch is that wrong answers earn a strike and “three strikes and you’re out”, literally: kicked out of the cab on the spot with no (extra) money.
The most recent episode of Cash Cab: After Dark, aired originally on Wednesday night, featured a question about solitaire on Windows, an area in which I have some degree of expertise.
Question: A blessing for bored PC users, what specific variety of solitaire has come with Microsoft Windows since 1995?
The correct answer, of course, is FreeCell, which shipped with Windows 95. (As an aside, I was in attendance at the Win95 release event on the Microsoft Campus. Big doin’s.) However, FreeCell was actually available with Win32s (for 16-bit Windows) and as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack products prior to this.
The FreeCell implementations in both Most Popular Solitaire and Pretty Good Solitaire are deal compatible with the Windows version. Additionally, our upcoming title, on another platform, also contains a version that produces the same deals (up to deal #1000000). More details to follow…
One possible incorrect answer would be Klondike, which is the proper name for the type of solitaire (or patience) that is simply called Solitaire in Windows. The word “specific” could lead one to that response, but that game started shipping with Windows 3.0 in 1990. (The aforementioned games all include Klondike.)
Another possible incorrect answer could be Spider [Solitaire], which started shipping with Windows me (but don’t tell Wikipedia that), but was previously available with Microsoft 98 Plus! Having beta tested the latter product, I can say that the shipping version was a vast improvement on the first version I saw. (Spider is also included in all of the aforementioned Goodsol Development titles as well, including the Spider One Suit and Spider Two Suits variants.)
Too much solitaire information? I have lots more.
I am looking for the old version of spider solitaire that automaticlly came with windows. I had it on my other computer that crashed and I am unable to find it now. Can you help me find a site to download it from? I would appreciate any help you can offer. I have tried typing it in several different ways to no avail.
If you already had Spider Solitaire with your copy of Windows, then you should not need to download anything. You just need to enable that Windows feature. How exactly to do this varies depending on the version of Windows:
In Vista, go to ‘Control Panel->Programs and Features’. Click on ‘Turn Windows features on or off’, then check the box for ‘Games’ or ‘Spider Solitaire’.
In XP, go to ‘Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs’. Click on ‘Add/Remove Windows Components’. Highlight ‘Accessories and Utilities’ and press ‘Details’, then check the box for ‘Games’.
Once you press ‘OK’, you should be good to go (although you may be asked to insert your Windows disc).
If this is too much of a problem, then go to http://www.moposol.com and download Most Popular Solitaire, which contains Spider (and lots more) and can be purchased for only $16.95.
I want to thank you so much Greg your advice really helped. It was right where you said it would be and it was so easy to get. Again thank you so much.