Why did Windows come with Minesweeper?
Minesweeper came with Windows because the people building Windows 3.1 loved it: a Microsoft games manager told The Washington Post in 1994 that it went in because “it was the favorite game of everybody involved in creating that software” (Washington Post, 1994). The popular story that Microsoft added it to teach people to right-click is repeated widely, but we couldn’t find Microsoft or the game’s makers ever saying so.
Play Minesweeper now, or read on for the full story. For the wider timeline, from 1980s grid games to Windows 8, see our history of Minesweeper.
Where did Windows Minesweeper come from?
It started as a programmer teaching himself something new. Curt Johnson joined Microsoft in 1989 and wrote a game called PM Mine for IBM’s OS/2. He later explained: “I wrote PM Mine to learn the graphical environment PM and OS/2” (minesweepergame.com, Curt Johnson).
Robert Donner, who had joined Microsoft around the same time, released PM Mine 2.0 in May 1990. After Windows 3.0 came out on 22 May 1990, he rewrote the game for Windows as Win Mine (minesweepergame.com, Robert Donner).
So the game wasn’t designed by a committee to teach anyone anything. It was a side project by two Microsoft programmers who, like the rest of the team behind the early Windows games, had day jobs too (Kotaku, 2023).
How did a game get into a Microsoft product at all?
Through the Windows Entertainment Pack, a boxed set of small games for Windows 3.0. Minesweeper first shipped in it on 8 October 1990 (minesweepergame.com, Windows Entertainment Pack).
Getting the pack approved was not easy. In his book on Minesweeper, journalist Kyle Orland describes how the people behind it had to win over a Microsoft review board. Product manager Bruce Ryan remembers being told that “Microsoft is a serious company that does serious things” (Kotaku, 2023).
The team got round it partly by pitching the pack at office workers. Ryan said: “Our target market was the ‘loosely supervised businessperson.’” The pack was also seen as a way to sell the idea of computers as something that belonged in the home (Kotaku, 2023).
It helped that Bill Gates was a fan. According to Ryan, Gates didn’t watch TV or play video games, with the exception of Minesweeper (Kotaku, 2023).
Why was Minesweeper added to Windows 3.1?
Because it had become the office favourite. In 1992 Minesweeper moved from the pack into Windows 3.1 itself (minesweepergame.com, Windows Entertainment Pack).
In 1994, The Washington Post asked Microsoft why. Libby Duzan, Microsoft’s lead product manager for entertainment, gave a simple answer: it was “the favorite game of everybody involved in creating that software” (Washington Post, 1994).
The same article tells how Gates got so hooked that he took the game off his own office computer, then went to play it on another executive’s machine instead (Washington Post, 1994).
Did Minesweeper teach people to right-click?
This is the story most people have heard. In 2015 Business Insider reported, crediting Mental Floss, that Minesweeper “was also designed to help users acclimate to a mouse,” this time to the idea of right-clicking and left-clicking (Business Insider via ScienceAlert, 2015). In 2019 the design site 99% Invisible described it as teaching players “how to fluidly left- and right-click to get things done” (99% Invisible, 2019).
Here is what we can and can’t confirm:
- The game does use both buttons. You open squares with a left-click and flag them with a right-click. That is still how it works today, including on this site, where you can also press and hold to flag on a phone.
- Microsoft did say that about Solitaire. In the same 1994 article, Microsoft explained that Solitaire was put into Windows to help people who were nervous of the new system and to teach them how to use a mouse (Washington Post, 1994).
- Nobody involved said it about Minesweeper. In the sources we could check, the people who made and shipped Minesweeper describe a game written for fun, learning or office play. The reason Microsoft gave in 1994 was popularity, not training.
So right-click practice may well have been a side effect, since every game asks you to flag mines with the right mouse button. But as the reason Windows came with Minesweeper, it isn’t supported by anything we could find from Microsoft.
What about Solitaire?
Solitaire is the twin of this story, and its teaching role is better documented. Wes Cherry wrote it (Washington Post, 1994), and it first came with Windows 3.0 in 1990. Microsoft’s own Xbox Wire said in 2015 that it “got new computer users acquainted with the mouse and drag-and-drop controls” (Xbox Wire, 2015).
Our sister site has the full story: why did Windows come with Solitaire?
Is Minesweeper still part of Windows?
Not built in. Microsoft took Minesweeper out of Windows 8 and made it a free download from its app store instead (Wikipedia, Microsoft Minesweeper).
The board sizes it made famous live on, though. Beginner, Intermediate and Expert are the same three levels the Windows game used, and the mines are still placed at random, which is why the classic game can sometimes leave you with a guess.
Play Minesweeper now, on the same three boards, with right-click flagging just like the original.
Questions people ask
Who made Minesweeper for Windows?
Curt Johnson wrote the first version, PM Mine, for OS/2 in 1989. Robert Donner rewrote it for Windows in 1990, and it first shipped in the Windows Entertainment Pack that October.
When did Minesweeper start coming with Windows?
In 1992, with Windows 3.1. Before that it was only in the Windows Entertainment Pack, a set of games sold on its own.
Was Minesweeper made to teach people to right-click?
That is the popular story, and the game does use both mouse buttons. But we could not find Microsoft or the game's makers ever saying that was the reason. The reason Microsoft gave in 1994 was that it was the favourite game of the people who built Windows 3.1.