Resource Hacking Windows Vista Games

by Vitaminion  (vitaminion@gmail.com)

If you have Windows Vista, then by now you have probably tried its version of the classic time-wasting game Minesweeper.

You may have noticed differences between the Vista version and its predecessors.  The Vista version has snazzier graphics, animated explosions and a weird sweeping beam of light when you win.

But it still gets boring fairly quickly.

This article will explain how to customize Vista's built-in games, using Minesweeper as the main example.  It will also give you an introduction to the basics of Resource Hacker, a powerful freeware Windows program available at www.angusj.com/resourcehacker.

The latest version of Resource Hacker was released in 2002, and its author no longer supports it, so Resource Hacker is not a new program, but it's still fun to use.  It's a good way for novices to poke around applications without needing programming knowledge.

First, make a copy of your Minesweeper folder, which is probably in: Program Files\Microsoft Games

To find it, right-click Minesweeper in your Start menu, choose Properties and click Open File Location on the Shortcut tab.  You want to work on a copy in case you screw something up.

Launch Resource Hacker and use it to open your copy of Minesweeper.DLL.

You will see a tree list of folders.  Many of Minesweeper's settings are kept in an XML document and are simple to edit.  After each change, be sure to save your work in Resource Hacker before firing up your game.

Here are a few examples of things you can do:

Unlock the Hidden Debug Menu

Use Resource Hacker to open Minesweeper.EXE.MUI, which will be in a folder inside the Minesweeper folder.

On my system, the folder is called en-US, but yours might be different.

In Resource Hacker, open the Menu folder, then the 164 folder and then click the 1033 resource inside.

See the text for the Debug menu options?  Now you can replace the boring old menu options with the hidden ones.  Open the 163 folder, which contains the boring old menu; then, right-click the 1033 inside and delete it.  Right-click the 1033 inside the 164 folder and rename it to 163.  Then save.

Launch Minesweeper and you'll see the Debug menu.  It has four options.  Toggle Show Mines will show you all the mines, but you must select it after you have clicked at least one square to start playing.  Win forces an automatic win.

Solitaire, Spider Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and even Purble Place all have hidden Debug menus with cheats and other secrets; in fact, Purble Place has several hidden menus.

Make a Bigger Minefield than the 24x30 Board the Game Allows

Use Resource Hacker to open Minesweeper.DLL.

Open the UI\MINESWEEPER.XML folder inside.  Find the tags MaxBoardWidth and MaxBoardHeight.  These numbers define the upper limits of the board size.

Change them as you please, save, and launch the game.

Go to the Game menu and choose Options.  The box still says the width and height limits are 24 and 30, but you'll find that they aren't.

You can also change the limit on the number of mines by changing the number in the MaxMines tag in that same UI\MINESWEEPER.XML resource.

Change Graphics, Sounds and Other Settings

Use Resource Hacker to open Minesweeper.DLL.

Open the DATA folder inside.  You will see many subfolders containing the game's sounds and graphics, which you can replace with your own.

For example, open: SHEETS\BLUESHEET1X21.JPG

Right-click the 1033 and choose Save [DATA: SHEETS\BLUESHEET1X21.JPG: 1033].

Save the JPG file.  Edit it however you want.  Then right-click the 1033 and choose Replace Resource.

Browse to your edited JPG, enter the top-level folder, which in this case will be DATA, as the resource type and the subfolder, which in this case will be SHEETS\BLUESHEET1X21.JPG as the resource name.  Leave the language field blank.  Save and launch Minesweeper.

These are just a few examples of what you can do with Resource Hacker.  Poke around a little bit, and you'll find that you can change the animation speed for Minesweeper's exploding mines, change the text of menus and error messages, and do much more.

It would probably take a book to describe everything Resource Hacker can do, even for a small game like Minesweeper or Solitaire.

Hopefully, this article has encouraged you to check it out, play around, and most importantly, have fun learning new things.