They all look pretty much like the original. For example, a web search for “minesweeper clone” finds Minesweeper X, one called Clone, and Andrew Lim’s Minez. Why not try a few of those? There are also plenty of alternatives that you can download from other sites. There are hundreds of alternatives in the Windows Store: a search for “solitaire” finds 730 apps, while “solitaire for desktop” finds 81. The bundle includes five games so perhaps a one-off £7.95 would be acceptable, but I don’t think people who have been playing Solitaire free for 25 years really want to pay that much every year in perpetuity. In the UK, the Solitaire Collection costs £1.19 per month or £7.95 per year. Third, the pricing for ad-free versions looks too high. There’s nothing wrong with having a gamertag, and serious gamers love them, but they should be optional for casual gamers. Second, running a casual game like the Microsoft Solitaire Collection Premium Edition lumbers you with an Xbox Live gamertag. The basic free version should still be free and ad-free. First, introducing a new freemium game is not the same as taking a game that’s been free for decades and making it freemium. Having said all that, I don’t think this is a smart move on Microsoft’s part, for three reasons. That’s what happens when people don’t want to pay for content. Companies don’t charge for the games, but they charge to remove advertisements or to add extra features. This is almost always the case with free store-based apps whether on Windows, Android or Apple’s iOS. These Microsoft games are still free, but they now include adverts. This should have taught users to log on and download them. (There’s an excellent post about this by James Hunt.) With Windows 8 and 10, Microsoft moved the games to the Windows Store. Microsoft uses games partly for educational purposes: for example, Solitaire taught a generation to use the mouse to drag-and-drop. Is there a safe way to restore the old versions of the games, which were much faster to load and – to my old eyes – clearer to see? I can find several suggested solutions on YouTube, but they all involve downloading zip files from unknown websites. Where is my Solitaire? Oh, I can go to the Window Store and purchase a souped-up (ie ruined) Solitaire, but that costs money. Are we likely to get it on 10 in the future? Veronica I tried to install Chess Titans from Windows 7 but it won’t let me. I am missing the free games such as Chess Titans, Solitaire and a few more that Windows 10 doesn’t have.

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