How to Get the Games Working in Vista

March 19th, 2007

Windows Vista has no Games?

So I helped one of my friends buy a new laptop yesterday – it’s a beauty – An Acer TM5625WSMi laptop with a 17 inch screen, Intel Core Duo 2Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb Harddrive – the works – all for about $US1500 – highly recommended.

Unhappy Children – where’s the games Mom?

Deb’s really happy with the purchase, but her 10yo daughter is PISSED OFF! 🙂 I got an upset phone call – there is NO GAMES!

So I did a bit of a search, and I found that Vista DOES have games – all the old classics like minesweeper, solitaire, frecell, Spider Solitaire and Hearts, along with a crop of groovy new ones. There’s more on the new vista games here.

Anyway, I sent that link to Deb and she informed me that there was an item in the start menu called games, but that it didn’t actually have anything in it – so.. back to Google…

Make Vista Games Work – Allow or Deny?

After a bit of Googling, I realised that Deb’s computer has Vista Business installed. It seems that Vista Business has the games turned off by default (the bloody kill joys) to try and improve productivity (ha ha) but there is a way to get them working.

Solution – How to turn on the Games in Vista Business

So here’s the instructions if your 10 year old is complaining too (or you are bored at work) :-

Click on the start menu, and then click ‘control panel’
Click on the ‘program’ group.
Click ‘turn windows features on or off’ (you’ll need to be logged in as an administrator to do that – it’s usually the first user you created, but if not, this primer may help)
Click the games box, and hit ok. Wait a little while as it has a think..
Close the control panel, click the start menu and then click ‘all programs’ – you should see the games folder is now full of the great new vista games.

Cheers,

theDuck

Entry Filed under: 7. Microsoft Tips

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6 Comments Add your own

1. Laura | October 8th, 2008 at 3:15 am

Thank you so much! I’ve had vista business for over a year and couldn’t find my games! Thanks for clearing it up!
2. Julie | October 26th, 2008 at 10:34 pm

Fantastic – now I can while away the hours being non-productive when I should be doing better things with my time. Thanks heaps.
3. Robert H | January 30th, 2009 at 4:55 am

Thankyou soooo much, this time would you believe it, its the other way round my dad wants the games on so he asked me to sort it out, thats again so much, i owe you one.
4. another Dad | April 20th, 2009 at 5:01 pm

thanks so much, my reputation is intact!
5. me | July 20th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

This was the first link that came up when I googled this and it was everything I needed. Thank you for making my life that much easier.
6. Dan | December 10th, 2009 at 5:54 am

Thank you very much. i’ve been spending a while looking how to get games on vista and when I googled it, this came up and was great

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