Do you remember those days of playing those good old classic games? Internet wasn’t that popular back then, and only a few could afford it. So to pass the time, Windows users indulged in some of the games that sucked up hundreds of hours of gameplay. I am talking about Minesweeper and Pinball. The games were still available in Windows 7, but starting from Windows 8 and Windows 10, Microsoft decided that they had enough of these games and stopped including them in the future version. Solitaire and other cards can still be found but with advertisements, but the good old Pinball and the minesweeper are missing from the operating system. This post will share how to bring back or install Windows 7 classic games in Windows 10.
How to install Windows 7 Classic Games on Windows 10
It may be true that the new and improved Windows 10 is one of the best releases by Microsoft; with its faster load speeds and online cloud integration, getting rid of some of the mainstays of the game may be considered a poor choice by Microsoft. One may argue that there are much better online games available nowadays, but for the people growing up in their early 90s, share some special memories of Solitaire, Minesweeper, Spider Solitaire, etc., that cannot be replaced, otherwise.
There are three ways of doing this. One is where you can use a Windows 7 computer. You can copy games from there and install them manually. The rest two are third-party sources from where you can download and play the games.
How to copy classic games from Windows 7 to Windows 10
Let us see how that can be achieved. For this, you need to have Windows 7 PC, Windows 10 PC, and a USB drive.
- On Windows 7 PC, go to C:\Program Files\, and you will see a folder named Microsoft Games. Copy that onto your USB Drive.
- Now, go to C:\Windows\System32 and find CardGames.dll to copy onto your USB drive as well.
- Plug your USB drive into your Windows 10 PC and copy the folder named Microsoft Games to C:\Program Files.
- Now, you have to copy the CardGames.dll file to every game folder you want to play, such as a folder for FreeCell, Hearts, Minesweeper, etc.
- All the classic games you wanted are installed on your computer, but you know these are the old-dated versions. It cannot play right away. To overcome this, you have to download HxD software, and it will open the game’s EXE file.
- Download the above software, and then drag-and-drop- the EXE file into the editor.
- Once the file EXE file is open in the editor, you have to find out the line that has written 7D 04 83 65 FC 00 33 C0 83 7D FC 01 0F 94 C0 and change the 7D to EB.
- That is it; you can start playing games on your Windows 10 PC. To play, you have to right-click on the game’s EXE file and choose Pin to Start.
Download Windows Entertainment Pack from Archive.org
Head over this page of Archive.org, and expand the list of Windows executable. It has games such as Cruel, Freecell, Golf, Pegged, Reversi, Snake, Solitaire, Taipei, Tictactics, and Minesweeper. These are the 32-bit versions of the Best Of Windows Entertainment Pack(Which runs on 64 bit OSes).
Classic Games Installer
- Click here, and you will be redirected to a website that will prompt you to download a RAR file.
- Download it and extract the contents, and proceeded with installing it right away.
- Follow the wizard, and you will get to Windows, where you get the option to choose the games you want to install. You can select all or only the ones you want on your Windows 10 PC. The pack contains the following games:
- Chess Titans
- FreeCell
- Hearts
- Mahjong Tiles
- Minesweeper
- Purble Place
- Solitaire
- Spider Solitaire
- Pinball
Click on Next after selection, and you are done.
- After the installation is complete, go to the Start Menu. Look for a folder named Games. It contains all the Windows classic games that you always wanted to play without advertisements.
This is how you can bring back all classic games in Windows without buying anything. However, if you are quite skeptical about downloading unknown software like me, there is one more way that helps you to bring back Windows classic games in new PCs.
These are two ways that will help you to bring classic games to Windows 10. If you know any other method you find easy to install classic Windows games in Windows 10, let us know in the comments section below.
Bored of old games?
While Windows 7 offers a lot of classic games, I am sure most of us have already played games on consoles and terminals such as Sega, Xbox 360, PlayStation, Atari, and much more. These games used to come in the disc and offered an excellent resale value. If you still own such games, check out the Old School Game Vault (TheOSGVault) where you can get good value for such games. Click here to visit the website, and check for the offers.
