Unleashing Windows: The Lighter Side of Windows - "Gang Screens"

In the spirit of the Holiday season, let's explore something that hides in the background of most Windows applications, including Windows itself. No, I'm not talking about some sort of computer virus. I'm referring to a thing call a "gang screen" or as it's sometimes called, an "Easter egg." These are hidden screens that the developers use to display the credits or little animations that the product developers have come up with.

Most major Windows applications have gang screens. I'm going to show you a few applications that have them as well as the little "secrets" to unlock them. The first of which is Windows 3.1 itself. To see the screen in Windows:

1. In Program Manager (or any of the "applets" in Windows) click on Help in the menu.
2. Then select the About option.
3. Hold down <Ctrl>++<Alt>+<Shift> & double-click on the Windows logo in the left half of the window.
4. Then close the About box.
5. Repeat steps 1 - 4 twice until the gang screen comes up.

You should see a chalkboard appear with the credits scrolling up the screen!!! Of course, other applications have these screens, but they don't all use the same trick to bring them up.

Let's look at another Microsoft product: Microsoft Word for Windows. We'll look at the way to bring up the gang screen in Word for Windows 2.0 as well as Word for Windows 6.0.

Word for Windows 2.0:

1. Create a macro called Spiff by choosing Tools, then Record Macro.
2. When prompted for the name, type Spiff.
3. Then, select Tools, Stop Recorder.
4. Select Tools, Macro, then choose Spiff from the macro list, then choose Edit.
5. Delete all of the text in the macro & close the window.
6. Click on Help, About & click the Word icon.
7. If you end the Word program, you will be prompted to save Global Glossary Changes. If you want to see the gang screen later, choose Yes.

Word for Windows 6.0:

1. Type T3! in a blank document using the normal template.
2. Make the text bold.
3. Open the Format menu and select AutoFormat & accept the changes.
4. Click Help, About, and then click on the Word icon.

Microsoft applications aren't the only one that have these screens. For example, Corel Draw has gang screens as well. Here's how to get to those in Corel Draw versions 3 and 4.

Corel Draw 3.0

1. In Corel Draw, click on Help, About.
2. Hold down <Ctrl>+<Shift> & double-click on the balloon logo.
3. Hold down on the left mouse button to see the balloon rise.

Corel Draw 4.0

1. In Corel Draw, click on Help, About.
2. Double-click on the balloon logo.
3. Hold down on the left mouse button to see the balloon rise.
4. Click with the right mouse button to drop "Elvis" from the sky.

Finally, let's look at two more programs with gang screens: PC Tools for Windows shell version 1.0 and Paradox for Windows version 1.0.

PC Tools for Windows shell 1.0:

1. From the PC Tools desktop, click on Help, About.
2. Hold down on <Ctrl>+<Shift> & click both mouse buttons on the desktop icon.

Paradox for Windows 1.0:

1. In Paradox, click Help, About.
2. Press <Shift>+<Alt>+<C>.

These are not all the applications that have these little hidden gems. This article was just to show you that they are out there, somewhere, in most applications. I won't give away all the secrets of the developers. I'll let you try to see if you can find out what some are in you favorite Windows application. You should have pick up a trend, however. Most applications require you to go to the Help, About box somewhere in the process. Now that I've hopefully interested you in some "Easter egg" hunting, I would like to say" HAPPY HUNTING! (Oh, and by the way: HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!)

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