Easter eggs still allowed?

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Manip

Apr 13, 2004 at 2:31 AM

In the past few years the number of Easter eggs hidden away has been falling. I mean the latest versions of Office have virtually none.

Has Microsoft limited the ability of the developers to add in the Easter eggs?

My favourite Easter egg of all time has to be from Excel 95, that doom like game with the credits at the end aka "Hall of the Tortured Souls". The flight sim was also good, even if a bit hard to control in Excel 97...
ernst ernst

Apr 13, 2004 at 2:35 AM

Were they ever allowed?!

-Ernst
Dag Dag

Apr 13, 2004 at 3:05 AM

I think that they are much harder on this things now and that's why we haven't seen so many of them.

/dag
Howard I need a few more good ideas.

Apr 13, 2004 at 4:59 AM

Well, I don't know the official reason, but I remember back in Office 2000, we were getting feedback that customers, and especially CTO's of large organizations, were complaining that the easter eggs may be causing code bloat or somehow making the application more secure because of the potential of rogue code (in their opinion). So... that may have contributed to it.

<SelfPromotion>
If you've got Office 2000 and the web components installed, you can find my name in the Spy Hunter-like game that is the easter egg.
http://www.eeggs.com/items/8240.html
</SelfPromotion>
Manip

Apr 13, 2004 at 5:09 AM

I would have a look but I am running Office XP and don't own 2k.

I never got to try out 2K's easter eggs, kind of skipped that entire version of office.
vanlandw

Apr 13, 2004 at 7:50 AM

lol..not missin much..

jk
KW802 Grumpy old programmer

Apr 13, 2004 at 7:55 AM

I thought that the 'official' reason was that in order to get some Federal security classifications that there could not be any undocumented features in the apps.
Manip

Apr 13, 2004 at 8:07 AM

It is kind of sad, cause Easter eggs are a traditional developer custom.. Additively they don't tend to be games but they have still been around since the first applications, mostly hidden messages. I don't think Linux contains enough, not sure why, guess it has something to do with their perfect code business or something.
prog_dotnet

Apr 13, 2004 at 8:29 AM

there is one in office xp and office 2003.
Try this:
Open a blank word document and type (or copy it):
= rand (200,99)
Press enter
Wait 3 seconds...
Dag Dag

Apr 13, 2004 at 8:45 AM

Well, this was not one of the funniest I have seen. But anyway, it's a simple way to make a document when your brain is on hold. (or something.)

I nice thing is that is localized. In my Word it was in swedish.

/dag
harumscarum out of memory

Apr 13, 2004 at 11:18 AM

For the non-ms emps here have you ever done any good EEs?
jmazner

Apr 13, 2004 at 4:56 PM

for more on MS and easter eggs, see http://blogs.msdn.com/jmazner/archive/2004/02/19/76842.aspx and http://blogs.msdn.com/jmazner/archive/2004/02/23/78891.aspx
Charles Welcome Change

Apr 13, 2004 at 5:04 PM

When I was in Windows, the rule for Easter Eggs was really quite simple:

You put one into Windows, you're outta here. End of story.

Keep on posting,

Charles
Manip

Apr 13, 2004 at 5:11 PM

Charles wrote:

When I was in Windows, the rule for Easter Eggs was really quite simple:

You put one into Windows, you're outta here. End of story.

Keep on posting,

Charles

Wow... ..... .... ....

I think Microsoft should lighten up a little. I mean if your silly and have massive or dangerous eggs.. but would it hurt to have some hidden 'Run' egg that popped up some credits? Or flipped the 'Start' up-side-down, No! Thing is, Microsoft wants to have a human face.. they also want to keep their corp. customers happy... they also want this that and the other... they need to set their priorities and stick to their guns. I'm not sure if I personally would want to work for Microsoft, just doesn't sound like fun.

...®
Charles Welcome Change

Apr 13, 2004 at 5:53 PM

Manip wrote:

I'm not sure if I personally would want to work for Microsoft, just doesn't sound like fun.
...®

Manip,

Putting easter eggs into an operating system is not a good idea for a number of reasons. But, more importantly, I don't want you to get the impression that Microsoft is a bad place to work because easter eggs in Windows is frowned upon. Microsoft is a great place to work. We were allowed (encouraged, really) to create Channel 9, after all. Consider how other large corporations would react to the notion of a Channel 9 type of web community...

I think easter eggs are dangerous. Consider if a backdoor entry point was disguised as a harmless little easter egg...

No, not in Windows. Can't have that.

Keep on posting,

Charles
redvamp128

Apr 13, 2004 at 5:58 PM

Actually instead of hiding it just create an easy to use link to the acknowlegements like that in Internet Explorer that shows a fancy credits list.

Help- About Internet Explorer- then click on Acknowlegements - (only while online) and it will wisp you to a page of credits.
machocomacho

Apr 13, 2004 at 11:10 PM

Just Curious if anyone in microsoft can explain this:
If you type about:mozilla into the Internet explorer a blue page shows up,
does this mean that microsoft is going to bring death to mozilla"the blue screen of death. I couldn't find any other page that showed the same results. If you type about:mozilla into firefox, it shows a creative little passage, I hope somebody can clear this up for me at microsft, it is fairly odd
FicmanS NO Other Right Click

Apr 14, 2004 at 6:28 AM

Been a long time since I even heard this term...lol

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Easter eggs still allowed?

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