Minesweeper (Windows) - Features

Features

There are three sizes:

Beginner: 8 × 8 or 9 × 9 field with 10 mines

Intermediate: 16 × 16 field with 40 mines

Expert: 30 × 16 field with 99 mines

Custom: Any values from 8 × 8 or 9 × 9 to 30 × 24 field, with 10 to 667 mines .

The beginner board size and the minimal board size increased from 8 × 8 to 9 × 9 in Windows 2000 and its derivatives. The reason for this change is not publicly known.

Interestingly, the density of mines is the same on the old 8 × 8 beginner field and on the 16 × 16 intermediate field (10/64 = 40/256). The 8 × 8 beginner game is still easier because it has fewer total chances of hitting a mine, and a smaller chance of having a problem that cannot be solved without guessing. The player is also much less likely to make a careless error because the game is shorter and concentration can be more easily sustained.

In 2003, Microsoft added a variation of the original Minesweeper, called Minesweeper Flags in MSN Messenger (from version 6 onwards). This game is played against an opponent, and the objective of this game is to find the mines by actually clicking on the squares where the mines are located, not by clicking the surrounding squares. The person who first uncovers 26 (out of 51) mines wins.

In Windows, the Minesweeper board is generated randomly before the player clicks any squares. If the player happens to click a mine square on their very first click, the mine at this square is removed and a new mine is placed in the upper left corner. If there is already a mine in the upper left corner (or it was the square that the player clicked), a new mine is placed in the first (starting in the upper left corner then proceeding left->right, top->bottom) available empty spot of the board. Once this change is made, the game proceeds as if the initial clicked square was empty. This is done to ensure that the player will not lose on their very first click. The first clicked square is always a zero (i.e. is not a mine and has no mines adjacent to it) in the Windows Vista version of the game. At this time it is not known if the Vista Minesweeper board is generated before or after the player first clicks a square in a new game.

However Windows Vista now has the ability to restart lost games, and save the progress of Windows Games like Minesweeper. Therefore it is possible to click on a mine in a restarted game, losing the game (with the option to restart again). This has also led to people taking screenshots of the lost game, restarting, and completing the grid with the lost game showing where all the mines are.

In Windows 3.1 and subsequent versions, there was a cheat code whereby typing "xyzzy" and then moving the mouse while holding Shift causes the screen's upper-left pixel to change between white and black as the mouse cursor moves over unmined and mined squares respectively. From Windows 95 onwards, the Explorer shell prevented this from working, but it would still work if another shell is used instead. In the Windows Vista version, the cheat has been dropped.

If the user clicks both mouse buttons or the middle mouse button on a revealed square, and the correct number of mines have been flagged around the square, then the remaining surrounding squares are revealed. This offers no strategic advantage, but serves as a convenience to the player by reducing the time it takes to clear a board and removing the need to consider which squares around a revealed patch can safely be clicked individually. However, if a square is flagged in error and this feature is used, it can set off a mine and end the game. From Windows Vista onwards, the feature can also be accessed by double-clicking the square, and a red X in the clicked square and a sound effect indicate if the square is not surrounded by the correct number of flags.