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List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ5329916
Source-derived summary

Some of Microsoft's early products included hidden Easter Eggs. Microsoft formally stopped including Easter Eggs in its programs as part of its Trustworthy Computing Initiative in 2002.

Windows

Windows 1.0, 2.0 and 2.1 all include an Easter egg, which features a window that shows a list of people who worked on the software along with a "Congrats!" button. Double clicking the list box further changes the background of the window to tiled smiley faces. The instructions for invoking the Easter egg vary depending on the version:

1.xx: Press Alt+⇧ Shift+Esc+↵ Enter.

1.01 and later: Hold Alt then Esc, release Alt then Esc, press Esc twice then press ← Backspace.

2.0 and later: Press F1, F5, F9, F4 and ← Backspace in rapid succession.

Windows 3.0 has a developer credits page which may be accessed by setting the focus to the desktop (by minimizing all windows and clicking on an open area of the desktop) then typing win30 followed by F3 and ← Backspace in quick succession. This causes the developer credits to appear on the desktop in the form of the email names of the crew.

Windows 3.1 has two visible Easter eggs, both of which reference the Microsoft Bear, which was the mascot of the Windows 3.1 development team.

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The public source identifies “List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products” as wikimedia list article. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around List, Easter and eggs.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with List, Easter and eggs providing the first useful test.
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This entry incorporates text from List of Easter eggs in Microsoft products” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.