Channel 9 Forums - Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Manip — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:31:13 GMT

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...

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

ernst — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:35:51 GMT

Were they ever allowed?!

-Ernst

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Dag — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 10:05:53 GMT

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

/dag

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Howard — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 11:59:48 GMT

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.

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Manip — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 12:09:57 GMT

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.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

vanlandw — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:50:06 GMT

lol..not missin much..

jk

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

KW802 — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 14:55:41 GMT

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.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Manip — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:07:01 GMT

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.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

prog_dotnet — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:29:00 GMT

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...

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Dag — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:45:49 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

harumscarum — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 18:18:27 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

jmazner — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 23:56:17 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Charles — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:04:55 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Manip — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:11:01 GMT

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.

...®

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Charles — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:53:54 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

redvamp128 — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 00:58:46 GMT

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.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

machocomacho — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 06:10:42 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

FicmanS — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:28:52 GMT

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

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Richard Acton — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 13:51:51 GMT

KW802 wrote:

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.

That's how I understood it too. It makes total sense to me, although I don't see why you couldn't keep the Easter Eggs and just document them anyway. The Word 2 About box with the little men being chased by a monster was pretty funny, but I thought the Excel 95(?) onwards entire 3D room that you can navigate round was a bit overkill.

Re: Being fired for adding an EE to an OS; was anyone fired for the Windows 95 Easter Egg accessed from creating 3 specifically named folders on the desktop?

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Manip — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 14:35:24 GMT

Is the fact that in XP you can't make a folder called 'con' an EE or more likely some reserved folder for something or other?

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

miies — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:00:25 GMT

Manip wrote:

Is the fact that in XP you can't make a folder called 'con' an EE or more likely some reserved folder for something or other?

That has been the case since Win95 (maybe even Win3.11). 'con' is a reserved system device name (just like 'com1' and 'lpt1') and as such can not be used as a file name.

Edit: 'com' -> 'com1'

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Charles — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 18:48:56 GMT

machocomacho wrote:

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

You should see an answer to this soon by an IE person.

Keep on posting,

Charles

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

GooberDLX — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 14:28:41 GMT

Charles wrote:

machocomacho wrote: 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

You should see an answer to this soon by an IE person.

Keep on posting,

Charles

Im anxious

Jake

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Charles — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:56:08 GMT

My understanding (after talking to various people in the know...) is that about:mozilla first showed up in IE3 for compatibility reasons and never left. As for the hidden meaning in today's implementation (a blue page), there is none.

Keep on posting,

Charles

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Jeremy W — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:37:45 GMT

Interesting result when doing the same in Firefox:

Jeremy W. wrote:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

...

Now, I'm fairly sure this has some entendre's

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

machocomacho — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 19:21:05 GMT

[quote user="Jeremy W."]Interesting result when doing the same in Firefox:

Jeremy W. wrote:And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Thats the creative little passage I talked about in my first post, if you want to know something, that passage changes with every release,look back at firebird and it talks about a pheonix rising from the fire..just an interesting hint......

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Tom Malone — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 22:24:16 GMT

With so many security flaws in windows and until sp2 the firewall not being on by standard what not have a little fun.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

ernst — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 16:17:37 GMT

Firebird 0.6.1 gives:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31
(Red Letter Edition)

woah!

-Ernst

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

sbc — Mon, 19 Apr 2004 16:48:56 GMT

Firefox 0.8:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15

Surely they should change it - as it is Firefox and not Firebird (unless some clasify foxes as birds?)

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

OldManCoyote — Tue, 20 Apr 2004 06:58:38 GMT

Charles wrote:

... 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...

A good propaganda machine as well.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

sbc — Sat, 12 Jun 2004 15:34:10 GMT

prog_dotnet wrote:

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...

Works on Word 2000 as well.
It writes The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. on 200 lines and 99 columns. = rand (5,2) writes it on 5 lines on two columns.

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

ZippyV — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:09:51 GMT

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

Which one did you make?

Coffeehouse - Easter eggs still allowed?

Charles — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 17:55:20 GMT

LOL

That's a good one, ZippyV.

Charles