Haxing Minesweeper

On Windows XP we still had xyzzy[1]. I had so much fun that time in school, claiming that I had psychic powers of seeing through the minesweeper table... ;)<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Xyzzy_(computing)#Other_computer_games_and_media" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Xyzzy_(computing)#Other_comput...</a><p>edit: The article links the original WinXP binary, and the cheat still works, even with wine ( <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.winehq.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.winehq.org&#x2F;</a> ) ;)

In case anyone else is wondering, the debugger used is OllyDbg [0].<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ollydbg.de&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ollydbg.de&#x2F;</a>

In Win2000 you could read from and write to memory of any app [1]. Which we did for minesweeper. By setting proper values and forcing the window to repaint we implemented a simple snake game. The body of the snake consisted of bombs and &quot;fruit&quot; you had to eat were flags. I don&#x27;t remember how we captured keyboard input though.<p>[1] If your app had admin rights IIRC

I remember when my buddy Charles hacked minesweeper for fun and learning. I thought it was so cool. He wrote about it here if you are looking for another reference point: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.charleshooper.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;minesweeper-hacking-viewing-process-memory-in-windows&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.charleshooper.net&#x2F;blog&#x2F;minesweeper-hacking-viewin...</a>

I always thought Minesweeper would compute the minefield dynamically as you played instead of generating a fixed map of the minefield at the beginning of the game.