Hearts (Windows)

Hearts

A component of Microsoft Windows
Hearts in Windows 7 before a hand is played. The South player must select three cards, passing them to West and receiving three from East. Play will commence with the player who holds the 2 of Clubs leading it.
Details
Type	Computer game
Included with	Windows for Workgroups 3.11 to Windows 7
Related components
FreeCell, Solitaire, Spider Solitaire

Hearts, also known as Microsoft Hearts and previously named The Microsoft Hearts Network, is a computer game included with Microsoft Windows, based on a card game with the same name. It was first introduced in Windows 3.1 in 1992, and has since been included in every version of Windows up to Windows 7.

Hearts was first included in Windows with Windows for Workgroups 3.1, Microsoft's first "network-ready" version of Windows, released in Autumn 1992, which included a new networking technology that Microsoft called NetDDE. Microsoft used Hearts to showcase the new NetDDE technology by enabling multiple players to play simultaneously across a computer network. This legacy could be seen in the original title bar name for the program, "The Microsoft Hearts Network".

Hearts continued to be included in subsequent versions of Windows, although it was absent in all Windows NT-based OSes prior to Windows XP including Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. From the 'Help' menu, Hearts offered a quote from Shakespeare's famous play, Julius Caesar (act III, scene ii): "I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts...". Later versions of Windows starting with Vista removed this quote, and changed the title bar name to "Hearts" (network play was also removed in the Windows XP version).

Hearts, like all Windows games, is not included with Windows 8 or Windows 10. As part of the operating system, it will be deleted when you upgrade to Windows 10 from an earlier version.

The three default opponent names, Pauline, Michele, and Ben, were specified by the program's developer. One is the spouse of a Microsoft employee who found a program bug, one was a Microsoft employee who resigned in 1995, and one is an employee's child who frequented the Microsoft worksite. The names are not used in the Windows Vista version of the game, instead favoring the three cardinal directions that the computer players pertain to depending on their side of the window ("West", "North", and "East"). Additionally, this version of the game no longer prompts for a player name to be entered at startup, and instead uses the name of the currently logged-in user account as the player name.