Get Free Cell and Solitaire working in Win 8 CP

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Here is the trick: It works, I am now playing Free Cell in Win 8 CP

1) Copy the Microsoft Games folder from Win 7 Program Files folder to the Program Files Folder in Win 8 CP. Copy the entire folder. If you have a 32 Bit system you would copy the Microsoft Games folder from Program Files (x86). If you have a 64 Bit system you would copy the Microsoft Games folder from Program Files.

2) Copy ‘cardgames.dll’ from C, windows, system32

3) Paste the .dll directly into each of these folders you have created in Win 8 CP: Free Cell, Hearts, Solitaire, Spyder Solitaire. I have shown the Free Cell folder below. The other 3 folders are similar.

30654-FreeCell

Now just apply this patch: Sorry, the patch is no longer available. This link is broken so I have removed it. It only worked during the beta test period. Now that there are Free Cell and other Solitaire games available from the Win 8 App Store, these are no longer necessary.

That’s it. It really works. I’m playing the Free Cell now.

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Hi Ted,

Interesting workaround. I assume that the full set of Microsoft games will be available in the RTM version, or even release candidates – time will tell.

In general, one needs to be careful not to violate the Win7 EULA by copying elements of that OS to another platform. I doubt very much if Microsoft will do anything about it because this is encouraging people to experiment with the Win8 CP and that is in Microsoft’s interest; but nonetheless, it might be in breach of the Win7 EULA.

By the way, is the Dropbox account yours or somebody else’s and is the executable safe? If it came from elsewhere, can you post a link to the originating article – just for safety sake.

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It is not mine. I did find this in another Forum. It is working fine on my PC. I do have up to date Images in case something unexpected happened. I do not have a source to post for the executable unfortunately. I will attempt to see if I can find it and post back.

I would also thing these games will be included in the released version of Win 8. They have been included in every version of Windows, I believe. I cannot see MS changing that. Since MS is encouraging people to test this beta, I do not believe this would go against the Eula although I am not a lawyer. They have encourage people to develop apps and install apps and report problems and report things that work. That is what this testing phase is all about.

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Yes, I assume they will be included soon too.

I think we had crossed wires on the EULA: It’s the Win7 EULA that I referred to, not the Win8 CP EULA. If one copies elements of the Windows 7 OS to anywhere else, it might be in breach of the Windows 7 EULA and that may have implications.

I too am not a lawyer, and have no reason to expect that MS would do anything, but worth noting that copying dll’s from Win7 might be in breach of the Windows 7 License.

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Yes, I assume they will be included soon too.

I think we had crossed wires on the EULA: It’s the Win7 EULA that I referred to, not the Win8 CP EULA. If one copies elements of the Windows 7 OS to anywhere else, it might be in breach of the Windows 7 EULA and that may have implications.

I too am not a lawyer, and have no reason to expect that MS would do anything, but worth noting that copying dll’s from Win7 might be in breach of the Windows 7 License.

I believe you’re correct on the EULA about coping from earlier editions of Windows. I can’t remember where I saw it though I believe it was back when the Consumer Preview came out and people began customizing more.
Joe

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Edit, by The Doctor:

I recently installed an old MahJongg game from 1990, which came on a single floppy disk, to Win-8/CP/32 and it installed and ran. Win-8 did stop and ask me if I wanted to Activate 16 bit compatibility. No problem!

16 bit programs will NOT run on Win-8/CP/64.

I’m enjoying the heck out of running that old game on Win-8/CP.

Cheers mates!
The Doctor

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I agree, I just wanted to get my Free Cell game working. I purchased my Win 7 (and my Win 95, Win 98, Win Me, Win XP and Win Vista) which all had these simple games included. I believe that ultimately Win 8 will also have these games included. They just aren’t in the beta. This is a method to transfer my legally obtained and activated Win 7 card games to my legally obtained and activated Win 8 CP OS. Yes I had to use a patch that someone developed (not sure who, not sure what the patch does, but it works) to allow the card games to work. I also do not believe MS will cause me problems for doing this. They do want me to be happy using Win 8 CP with the thought that ultimately I will like it enough to buy Win 8 when it is released. Having an operational Free Cell game is one way that I will be happy with Win 8 CP. I do enjoy this one simple game.

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I think there are two points to be considered here.

[*]First, Microsoft undoubtedly wish as many people to download, install and use the Win 8 CP and upcoming RP. It is in their interest for power users to play with these releases and that includes experimenting with the OS.
[*]
[*]Second, nobody has purchased Windows 7 or any earlier version of a Windows operating system. We have purchased a licence to use the software and we agreed to be bound by that licence. We do not own it, nor do we have the legal right to copy elements of it, or any other restricted licensed software, unless allowed by the licence conditions.

I have no expectation that the Microsoft legal dept would take any action regarding copying games files from any Windows release for use in the Win 8 beta products. But it is a slippery slope. What happens if, when Windows 8 is released for retail purchase, we find there is a feature in Windows 7 SP1 that is not included in Windows 8? Is it legal to enable it in Windows 8 by copying files from Windows 7 because we purchased Windows 7? No, it is not: because the licence we agreed to when installing Windows 7 forbids copying elements of the product. The restrictions come from the Windows 7 licence, not from Microsoft’s desire for us to experiment with Windows 8 CP

Please understand; the purpose of my cautionary note is not to be a kiljoy, but to ensure that readers have a balanced view which notes that copying licensed software has the potential to be illegal.

Let’s respect that position and all work within our own conscience.

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Hi Ted,I tried your workaround but for some reason I cannot paste the cardgames.dll into the relevant folders. Any ideas as to what I can do about this?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards, Roy

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Did you copy the entire MS Games folder from Win 7 Programs folder to the Win 8 RP Programs folder? Did you copy the Win 7 cardgames.dll file from the Win 7, windows, system32 folder? Did you try both Right Click, copy and Ctrl+C to copy the .dll file from the Win 7 folder to the clipboard?

I would also try Right Click, Paste and Ctrl+V for the paste operation to the 4 folders shown.

It worked very well for me.

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Ted, yes to your questions and yes I tried all options for the paste operation shown. I then used the Everything search app to search for cardgames.dll and it found it in 2 other Windows folders, apart from System 32. I was able to copy and paste the dll file from one of those folders to the Solitaire folder in Win 8 RP, and I then applied the patch and now I have Solitaire working in Win 8 RP.

Thanks for all your help.

Regards, Roy

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Roy, I’m glad you got it working. I just wanted my Free Cell. I enjoy it to relieve stress. If MS wishes me to remove it, they can surely ask me. They want us to test Win 8 and that is what I am doing.

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Bump

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Hello…I’ve tried to make the games work on my W8 but it doesn’t work for me and I don’t know why :(…. I copied the files from Program Files and not from Program Files (x86) because the games were in that folder and not in the other…This could be the reason? Can anyone help me? Those games are my life…joking

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I’m wondering if you tried using Win 7 32bit game files in a 64 bit system?
I have a 32 bit Win7 system sitting here and I tried the above drill to install the 32 bit files to a 64 bit copy of Win 8…………. wouldn’t work!
This morning I had an epiphany so swapped out the hdd containing Win 8 64 with a drive containing Win 7 64, copied the files above to an SDD drive. Reversed the drives again, followed the drill, ran the patcher, and everything is working fine. Just a thought!

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Hi,
I followed the instructions for Freecell/games xfer from Vista operating system in Windows 8. I was doing well until I clicked on the last step (broken link).
You say below that it doesn’t work anymore. Is that ‘for definite’? I hate the free games options MS has put with Windows 8 and would really like to get Freecell working as before. Just a thought and thx.

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Did you copy the entire folder from the Program Files Folder in Win 7 to the exact same from in Win 8. Did you Copy ‘cardgames.dll’ from C (Win 7), windows, system32 then
paste the cardgames.dll directly into each of these folders you have created in Win 8 RP: Free Cell, Hearts, Solitaire, Spyder Solitaire as shown in my original post? Did you then run the Games Patcher I show in my first post? This should work.

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Microsoft Security Essentials reports the linked to download (microsoft.games.patcher.1.2-patch.exe) as a hack tool.

31516-games-patcher

I recommend to use with extreme caution.

Also, as noted earlier in the thread, the unauthorised copying of cardgames.dll from a licensed Windows 7 installation to any other platform will be in violation of the Windows 7 licence.

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yes,I’ve tried step by step and it doesn’t work :((((….why me??? :))

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Sorry, no other ideas then.

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Gee! I didn’t know that!!!

I just copied Sol.exe and Cards.dll from XP to Win-7 or 8 in the root directory and then made a shortcut for sol.exe to my desktop and I sit here and play my old favorite SOL with no problems. As long as the .dll file is in the same directory as the .exe file, everything just works.

I guess it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to work, so it does.
Kind of like the bumblebee, that doesn’t know he can’t fly, so he does.:rolleyes:

My little trick may not work for everyone, on every PC running every version of Windows, but….
“Works for me!”

Cheers Mates!
Doc

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I installed Solitaire on Windows 8 CP, and it worked fine. Then I up graded to Windows 8 RP and installed Solitaire again, but now it doesn’t work. It’s possible I didn’t do the installation exactly the same way, but I think I did. The Solitaire icon is in the desktop taskbar. When I click it it looks like it’s active for several seconds, then it returns to inactive, and nothing opens.

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I don’t know if the patching is right the way i do….after i copy in my comp all those,i must press patch button from that program and then i must open the game…right?

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this what is written after trying to open the game ”the version of this program isn’t compatible with the version of Windows you’re running. check your computer’s system information to see whether you need a different version of the program for a 32bit operating system, 64bit operating system, or an ARM processor.” I don’t understand much thing from this,cause I don’t know computers very well

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what could go wrong? I don’t know the reason…

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You may not be able to then, sorry

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There is a new games app available in the Apps Store. Search for Solitaire in the apps store to find Card Games Chest

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There is a new games app available in the Apps Store. Search for Solitaire in the apps store to find Card Games Chest

I’m looking at the Install screen for the Card Games Chest. It says:

This app has permission to use:
Your Internet connection

Why would a game need an internet connection?

I don’t know Summit Data Corp, but it looks like they want to collect data about me and my computer usage to sell to nefarious third parties.

I don’t think so.

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The link to Microsoft Games Patcher 1.2 seems to be broken

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I’ve not been here for a while…….

Ya mean there is still someone out there who doesn’t know how to play XP-Solitaire in windows 8?

The entire XP game pack, along with cards.dll is available here:’
https://www.box.com/s/aluoi4e08s9b6eilfoqn

Download that file, then Unzip the files to the root directory of Windows 8, and then make a shortcut to your favorite card game to the Desktop.
Enjoy!

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The entire XP game pack, along with cards.dll is available here:’
https://www.box.com/s/aluoi4e08s9b6eilfoqn

Download that file, then Unzip the files to the root directory of Windows 8, and then make a shortcut to your favorite card game to the Desktop.

That download was updated today and the name and contents (‘AVG Removers’ .exes) does not sound like a set of Microsoft games. Could you verify that it’s still what you think it is?

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I’ve not been here for a while…….

Ya mean there is still someone out there who doesn’t know how to play XP-Solitaire in windows 8?

The entire XP game pack, along with cards.dll is available here:’
https://www.box.com/s/aluoi4e08s9b6eilfoqn

Download that file, then Unzip the files to the root directory of Windows 8, and then make a shortcut to your favorite card game to the Desktop.
Enjoy!

That link you provided is invalid DrWho.

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I do not use it any more. I do not believe it’s valid any longer. Just use the Win 8 Store app, Games section and look for MS Solitaire Collection for Free Cell. It’s actually better anyway.

This was an old patch for Win 8 CP.

By the way many of the games supply online options and hence do use your internet connection. I play both the above Free Cell game and the MS Mahjong game and both supply daily challenges that download daily puzzles/games from the internet. You can use the games without internet, but I believe they are somewhat throttled and less fun.

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I just got this new laptop with win8 and downloaded solitaire hd played it twice but it is no where to be found.windows desktop search comes up with nothing. So where did it go?

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That is definite! This patch was used during Win 8 CP in early 2012. It is now invalid. I quite like the MS offerings. I play Free Cell and Mahjong every day. The only reason I searched for and found the above info was to allow me to play Free Cell during this time when nothing else was available. Now that we have these offerings in the MS app store, I am quite content.

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That is definite! This patch was used during Win 8 CP in early 2012. It is now invalid.

Hmmm. I accept why you think that there is no need for this patch any more and understand why you may wish you had never brought it to WS’s attention in the first place. That said, I don’t believe that it’s appropriate to post falsehoods here to try to ‘undo’ the latter (if indeed that is your intent).

The fact is that the patch which you apparently temporarily provided access to still exists where it was apparently developed, is still being actively discussed there this month (with people getting advice on how to use it in special cases, e.g., other languages), and said discussion includes the unequivocal statement “Confirmed working on Windows 8 RTM”. In other words, it is no more ‘invalid’ than it ever was, and your phrasing “it is NOW (emphasis mine) invalid” suggests that legality is not what you were talking about – since by that metric it has ALWAYS been invalid if it EVER was – but rather that you are claiming that it worked on pre-release versions of Win8 but no longer does on the RTM.

That said, I’m certainly not going to post a link if you in your role as WS moderator think it would be inappropriate: I’m simply correcting what appear to be erroneous statements on your part, sympathetic though I may be to what I suspect was your motivation for making them.

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The invalid I mentioned is the web link I had originally posted. The web link is now broken and has been removed. Hence the patcher is invalid from that source. I guess I was not clear enough in this thread. The link was broken and I have no idea where to find the new link, and have no intention of trying to find a new valid link.

I did a lot of searching before finally finding that web site early in the Win 8 beta days because there was not a Free Cell available during the beta test period. There now is a Solitaire Collection available.

I do NOT (my emphasis) wish I had never brought it up back in March. At that time many people were asking about the card games and I found a work around. This was only brought up because there was not the availability of the card games. Now there are card games available so I do not have the need to find a work around. As far as posting “falsehoods to undo the latter” I am doing nothing of the sort. Because I left out the web page link is broken makes no significant difference and I do take offense to your insinuation that I am intentional propagating falsehoods.

Folks, to clear things up since I obviously accidentally left out some “very vital” information, The original link to a web site that provided the patcher file was broken, I assume by whomever had originally posted it. Since the link was broken, I went into the original post, posted I believe in April, and removed the broken link. Since I use the games now provided by MS I have no intention of trying to find another workaround for those that do wish to use the Win 7 variety. During those times there were some glitches with those games that I was willing to endure since I enjoyed playing the games. I now prefer the games provided by MS in the app store. I am sorry if my statements in this thread confused anyone about why the patcher was invalid. It is the original link to the patcher web site that was broken.

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There was something about your phrasing that triggered my BS detector, but perhaps it hasn’t returned to its normal setting now that the political hijinks of the past year are winding down a bit. If my suspicions were unfounded, I sincerely apologize.

To make it clear, I’m not talking about ‘another workaround’ but about the same patch (unless there was another named microsoft.games.patcher.1.2-patch.exe that was also posted for a while on a dropbox account). And when you stated “This patch was used during Win 8 CP in early 2012. It is now invalid.” the word “It” clearly referred (even if unintentionally) to the patch, not to some particular location in which it might be found.

Since you seem to have no objection to providing a link here, and since at least two people have recently requested one, the relevant thread is located at http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/33214-How-to-use-Microsoft-Games-from-Windows-7-in-Windows-8?

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Like I mentioned if my wording was confusing, I’m sorry. As stated the link to the patcher site was broken when I tried it the other day. I guess I assumed the patcher was no longer available. If it is indeed then those that would still like to use this method can check there.

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Not to beat a dead horse but FYI & FWIW I recently copied my Windows 7 64-bit Windows Games folder to my new Windows 8 64-bit system plus the CardGames.dll file, which then didn’t work on the new machine. I then downloaded the microsoft.games.patcher.1.2-patch.exe, ran it, responded to Windows Security/Defender to Accept it, and it ran. The Windows 7 games now play on the Windows 8 machine.

I believe if the Windows 7 games had been 32-bit I would have had to put them in the Windows 8’s Program Files (x86) folder for them to work rather than the Program Files folder, but still needing to be patched.

The info I used to do this I found at a posting here: http://www.intowindows.com/play-windows-7-games-in-windows-8/

The Solitaire Suite from the Windows Store works without being patched.

hth

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This would be really great, but I have a new computer that was preloaded with Windows 8 only. There IS no Windows 7 to fall back on. What do I do in that case?

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There is a very nice Solitaire games app in the App Store. It is the MS Solitaire Collection. I actually prefer it better than the Win 7 variety. Give it a try. It’s free.

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Did you download it from the Win 8 Store, or from the internet by normal means. If the Win 8 Store it should be on the Win 8 Start Screen.

If from the internet conventionally, try to download it again and keep close track of where it is downloaded to (what folder) and where it is installed (what is the installation folder)

Most apps are installed in Programs Files or Programs Files (x86). The former is the 64 Bit folder, the later is the 32 Bit folder.

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The win 8 store says I own it so I can’t download it again. If I remember right I tried to put it on my desktop and have not seen it since. I did a search in both places and nothing.

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Download everything search from Voidtools.com

Plug solitaire.exe in the search box.

Jerry

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Thanks again Jerry. Everything found it with 2 letters typed. WindowsApp is hidden by default, I should have known that when I couldn’t find the WindowsApp folder

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Happy to hear it worked.

Jerry

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LOL The Nice folks at Microsoft have decided that I don’t need to get into that folder(WindowsApps). I tried to take ownership but I’m not able to. It’s grayed out. Toshiba was less then no help with this. I love Microsoft. Trustedinstaller is the owner. Lets see, I downloaded it, I installed it, am I not the Trustedinstaller. Guess not cause I’m denied entrance. All I should have to do is right click and run as Admin.
and it should open up. I love Microsoft.

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Hey Pops, I’m not sure why you are having this problem. I did nothing special, just went to WindowsApps and clicked it to open it. I can also open all the sub folders.

33516-WindowsApps

Now I have previously used GrantAdminFullControl, which is similar to Take ownership on steroids. Perhaps this is what allows me to do this.

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Here is the trick: It works, I am now playing Free Cell in Win 8 CP

1) Copy the Microsoft Games folder from Win 7 Program Files folder to the Program Files Folder in Win 8 CP. Copy the entire folder. If you have a 32 Bit system you would copy the Microsoft Games folder from Program Files (x86). If you have a 64 Bit system you would copy the Microsoft Games folder from Program Files.

2) Copy ‘cardgames.dll’ from C, windows, system32

3) Paste the .dll directly into each of these folders you have created in Win 8 CP: Free Cell, Hearts, Solitaire, Spyder Solitaire. I have shown the Free Cell folder below. The other 3 folders are similar.

30654-FreeCell

Now just apply this patch: Sorry, the patch is no longer available. This link is broken so I have removed it. It only worked during the beta test period. Now that there are Free Cell and other Solitaire games available from the Win 8 App Store, these are no longer necessary.

That’s it. It really works. I’m playing the Free Cell now.

Hello Medico,
Searching for a 64bit Freecell, I tried your links in the above email and they both defaulted to an advert for MaaS360. Is this an intentional hijack or what?
Please post the link again.
Thanks,
Graeme.

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