How to get Solitaire, Minesweeper, or any other Windows 7 game on Windows 8

I bought my wife a Windows 8 laptop a little while ago, and while it's very good in many ways and far from the satanic product it's often made out to be, it has one major flaw: it doesn't ship with Solitaire! Or Spider Solitaire, or Minesweeper, or any of those games that make office life ever-so-slightly less awful. Installing these games turned out to be a rather more involved process than I thought it would be, and I thought I'd put together a guide for those who wish to replicate it. While it looks rather complicated, it's not really difficult at all, and I've tried to write this guide so that even the most technophobic of readers can follow it.

It's worth noting at this point that Windows 8 versions of the games are available free from the Microsoft store: just open the store and search for "Microsoft Solitaire Collection". For many, these will be a perfectly acceptable methadone; what follows is for those purists who seek a more traditional opiate. To follow this guide, you will need:

• Access to a machine running Windows 7
• A memory stick or some other way of copying .exe files to the Windows 8 machine
• An internet connection.

Before we start: I'm assuming that Windows on both machines is installed on the C:\ drive, as this is the default position, and have written the instructions accordingly. If you haven't installed Windows on that drive, then substitute whatever drive you did choose for "C:\" in the following instructions.

1) Find and copy the games from Windows 7
On the Windows 7 machine, navigate to "C:\Program Files" and copy the entire "Microsoft Games" folder to your USB stick or whatever medium you're using to transfer the files.

2) Find and copy CardGames.dll
On the Windows 7 machine, navigate to "C:\Windows\System32" and copy the "CardGames.dll" file to the USB stick as you did with the games files from step 1.

3) Install the games on Windows 8
Move the USB stick to the Windows 8 machine, and  copy the "Microsoft Games" folder from it to the "C:\Program Files" directory. Copying them to this location will require administrator permissions.

4) Copy CardGames.dll
On the Windows 8 machine, navigate to the "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games" folder you created in step 3. This should contain a number of folders containing the individual game files. Copy the "CardGames.dll" file from the USB stick into each of the folders of the games you wish to play.

5) Disable the version check
Right now, if you try and run any of the game .exe files from the folders you accessed in step 4, nothing will happen. This is because the games are checking what version of Windows you are running and refusing to run on systems that are not using Windows 7. To prevent this check from running you need to edit the .exe files using a hex editor. If you already have a hex editor installed, skip ahead to step 8. If you don't have a hex editor, or have no idea what I'm talking about, read on.

6) Download and install Notepad++
Notepad++ is a free, open source text editor, superficially similar to the Notepad that comes with Windows but much more powerful and useful. Open the Notepad++ download page in your browser of choice, and click the link to download the Notepad++ installer.

Once it's downloaded, run the installer "npp.X.X.X.Installer.exe" from wherever it's downloaded, and follow the instructions (the X.X.X. in that file name will be numbers representing the version of Notepad++). I recommend that you allow the installer to place a shortcut on the desktop, as this will save time later on.

7) Install Notepad++'s Hex Editor plugin
Open Notepad++ if it is not already running, and, from the action bar, select "Plugins", then "Plugin Manager" and "Show Plugin Manager".

In the Plugin Manager that appears, scroll down to "HEX-Editor", tick its box and press "Install". Once this is done, Notepad++ will prompt you to restart it. Allow it to do so, and then close it.

8) Prepare to modify the .exe files
If you are using Notepad++, right-click its icon on the desktop or the start menu and select "Run as Administrator". If you open it normally, you will not be able to edit files in protected locations. If you are using your own hex editor, you should probably start that with administrator privileges as well.

From here on the instructions will be written for those using Notepad++; if you're not using it then you have your own hex editor and so I'm assuming you can follow along.

Once Notepad++ has opened, go to "File", then "Open", and navigate to the games folder ("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games"), and then open one of the individual games folders. For this example, I'll be using Solitaire. Select the "Solitaire.exe" file and open it.

You'll be presented with a page full of nonsense like this:

We now need to switch to hex editing mode. To do this, select "Plugins", then "HEX-Editor", then "View in HEX".

You should now be presented with a rows of hexadecimals, looking something like this:

We now need to edit this file to stop the version check from running. The edit we need to make will be different depending on whether we got the game files from a 32- or 64-bit version of Windows 7. If you know you're running a 64-bit version, you can skip ahead to step 10. If you don't know what version you're running, or have no idea what I'm talking about, keep reading.

9) Editing for 32-bit
In the open Notepad++ file, search for the following string:

7d 04 83 65 fc 00 33 c0 83 7d fc 01 0f 94 c0

Do this by opening the "Find" window (either click "Search" and then "Find", or press CTRL+F), and copying/typing that string into the "Find what:" box. It doesn't matter whether the letters or capitalised, or whether there are any spaces. Then press "Find Next". If you get an error message reading "Can't Find", you either typed in the string wrong or have a 64-bit version of the file. If the latter, skip to step 10.

Once you've found the string, you need to replace the first "7d" with "eb". You can't delete characters in a hex file, so to do this simply place the cursor in front of the first "7d" and then type "eb".

Then save the file by clicking "File" and then "Save", or by pressing CTRL+S. You can now skip to step 11.

10) Editing for 64-bit
In the open Notepad++ file, search for the following string:

3b c6 0f 4c

Do this by opening the "Find" window (either click "Search" and then "Find", or press CTRL+F), and copying/typing that string into the "Find what:" box. It doesn't matter whether the letters or capitalised, or whether there are any spaces. Then press "Find Next". If you get an error message reading "Can't Find", you either typed in the string wrong or have a 32-bit version of the file. If the latter, go back to step 9.

Once you've found the string, you need to replace the first "3b c6" with "39 c0". You can't delete characters in a hex file, so to do this simply place the cursor in front of the first "3b" and then type "39 c0".

Then save the file by clicking "File" and then "Save", or by pressing CTRL+S.

11) Testing
If you navigate to the Solitaire folder ("C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Solitaire") and run the "Solitaire.exe" file, the game should now open normally. You may now wish to create a shortcut to the game; to do so, right-click the .exe and click "Send to" and then "Desktop (create shortcut)".

Repeat steps 8-10 for each of the games you wish to play.

Hope that helps.