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Take a look back at Microsoft Word Easter Eggs

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  • If you’ve been using computers for a long time, you know what the term Easter Egg means when related to software. An Easter Egg is a small program that is hidden deep inside of an application and is designed by the application’s developers as a way of displaying their names—very similar to the credits that you see at the end of a movie. However, uncovering the Easter Egg is tricky as it almost always involves performing a series of very intricate and non-intuitive steps.

    The increase in the prevalence of malware led to the notion that undocumented code embedded into a major application could be used to compromise sensitive or confidential data. In fact, many companies and government offices forbid the use of software containing Easter Eggs for security reasons. As such, Microsoft now officially bans the practice embedding Easter Eggs in their software as part of their Trustworthy Computing initiative.

    However, in their heyday, Microsoft’s developers created some really elaborate Easter Eggs. In this gallery, I’ll show you the Easter Eggs that they embedded into Word 95, 97, and 2000.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Word 95
    Launch Word as you normally would and type the word Blue at the top of the document. Then, select the text, pull down the Format menu and select the Font command. When you see the Font dialog box, select the Bold font style, change the color of the font to Blue, and click OK.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • You then type one space after the word Blue.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Pull down the Help menu and select the About Microsoft Word command. When you see the About Microsoft Word dialog box, double click on the Word graphic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • You’ll then see a black window appear over top of the About Microsoft Word dialog box containing just the graphic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • In a moment the graphic begins to scroll upwards and you’ll see the names of the developers.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • At the very end of the credits, you’ll see your name appear. Here you can see my name appears right after the Product Support Team.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Word 97
    Launch Word as you normally do and type the word Blue at the top of the document. Then, select the text, pull down the Format menu and select the Font command. When you see the Font dialog box, select the Bold font style, change the color of the font to Blue, and click OK.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Then type one space after the word Blue.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • At this point you pull down the Help menu and select the About Microsoft Word command. When you see the About Microsoft Word dialog box, hold down [Ctrl] [Shift] and click on the Word icon graphic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • You’ll then see a black window appear over top of the About Microsoft Word dialog box and a very rudimentary pinball game will appear. You use the Z and M keys to activate the flippers. While you play the game, the names of the Word 97 developers scroll up the screen. To exit the game, you press [Esc].

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Word 2000 - 1
    Launch Word as you normally do and press [F1] to display the "Office Assistant".

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • In the “What would you like to do?" prompt type the word Cast and click Search.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • In the subsequent “What would you like to do?" prompt, click the "Microsoft Office 2000 User Assistance Staff" topic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • When the Microsoft Word Help panel appears, double click the graphic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • When you do, you’ll see a quick animation and a list of all the people that developed the Help system in Office 2000.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Word 2000 - 2
    Launch Word as you normally do.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Press Alt F11 to start Microsoft Visual Basic.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Right click on the toolbar and select Customize from the menu. Then, pull down the Help menu and right click on the About Microsoft Visual Basic command. When you do, you’ll see a menu editing interface.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Change the About Microsoft Visual Basic command to Show VB Credits and then close the Customize dialog box

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Pull down the Help menu and select the new Show VB Credits command.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • When you do, a window will appear with a cloud background and music will begin playing. As it does, four colored blocks will float around the screen while the developers’ names scroll upward across the screen.

    Caption by: Greg Shultz

  • Caption by: Greg Shultz

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In a moment the graphic begins to scroll upwards and you’ll see the names of the developers.

Caption by: Greg Shultz

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