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Microsoft Developers Hid a Secret Puzzle in Windows Backgrounds as They Knew Images Would Leak (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft developers working on Windows 8 created a puzzle and embedded it in the wallpapers used for internal builds of the operating system. The team knew that the images would leak out to the public -- and probably the internal builds of Windows -- so they decided to have some fun with it. Over the course of numerous builds, the puzzle was developed -- but only one person ever solved it! Over the weekend, Jensen Harris -- a former group program manager of Microsoft Office and Microsoft director leading the team working on the redesign of Windows 8 -- took to Twitter to come clean about the secret puzzle. He explained that it was common for internal test builds of Windows to have wallpapers that were not intended for public release, but said that messages tended to be included to discourage leaking: "Traditionally, these wallpapers included text embedded in them threatening to throw people in jail if they leaked the build, blah blah, substantial penalty for early withdrawal, not all coins go up in value (some go down!), etc. etc. We wanted to try a more elegant tact. So early in Windows 8, we created a wallpaper that was a combination of the text the lawyers wanted us to use with an attempt to appeal to people's better nature...thus the "shhh... let's not leak our hard work" series of wallpapers was born."

16 of 44 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Mis-use of development resources by reanjr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Yeah, because the team designing wallpapers is definitely the people who should be fixing the bugs the engineers haven't gotten to.

  2. Wow by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm surprised enough people were interested enough in getting their hands on development releases of windows 8 to be able to solve the puzzle at all. It was released almost 6 years ago and it's adoption rate in the market still has been somewhat lackluster.

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    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Obviously, there was only one person interested enough...

    2. Re:Wow by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      You're kidding right? Windows development releases have been pirated since there were pirates. The only thing that put an end to it was the insiders program allowing anyone to get it for free. ...

      Wait nope, searching for Windows Insider builds returns some 400 odd torrents.

    3. Re:Wow by damn_registrars · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Pirating earlier versions of windows had a purpose, as there was generally improvement with each iteration. Windows 7 was a marginal improvement over XP (which was hardly at all an improvement over Windows 2000). But Microsoft never gave any reason to expect 8 to be an improvement over 7, and indeed it wasn't.

      Sure, some people pirated it just to pirate it. Make some sort of pointless statement or something. I can see that. I'm just really surprised it was pirated in large enough numbers - and at that with enough people pirating it repeatedly through the development cycle - that anyone noticed this.

      I guess that's a better hobby than cooking meth or clubbing baby seals, but I can imagine plenty of more productive things one could do with time.

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      Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  3. Here is one of the Wallpapers by Saija · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here is one of those said puzzle wallpapers

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    Slashdot ya no es que lo era! ;)
    1. Re:Here is one of the Wallpapers by Saija · · Score: 4, Funny

      Second wallpaper

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      Slashdot ya no es que lo era! ;)
  4. Re: Mis-use of development resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    i did the dollar sign instead of the s because they care about prophets

    I thought Steve Jobs was the prophet. He's not MS.

  5. find the center of the maze! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    find the center of the maze!

    1. Re:find the center of the maze! by forkfail · · Score: 2

      The enemy's gate is down.

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      Check your premises.
  6. Not Surprised by Dust038 · · Score: 1

    Bleeding Sarcasm xd Not Surprised that the 10 or so people still on Windows 8 took this long to solve it.

  7. Misuse of the word "Tact" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But I'll show some tack and not point out the error.

  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. MS Screws it up again... by plloi · · Score: 1

    Why create a puzzle based on sudoku but double up one the characters?

  10. Re: Mis-use of development resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    But the idiots responsible of these wallpapers were also behind the disgusting UI. So perhaps they should have listened the user feedback instead of wasting time on the wallpapers.

  11. Re:Mis-use of development resources by godel_56 · · Score: 1

    It's also a violation of the no Easter Egg policy that Microsoft instated for security reasons.

    They're not strictly easter eggs as there is no code involved; they're simply graphic features in plain sight. They're also only in dev versions not meant for release.