Do you love the “old-style” games like Solitaire, Hearts, FreeCell and others that you used to be able to play with Windows 7, but can’t find them in Windows 10 or Windows 11?
Well, those beloved old-style games were removed from the most recent versions of Windows and replaced with “modern” versions that you have to download from the Windows Store.
I happen to prefer the old-style games myself. If you prefer them as well, you can get them back!
Our friends over at Winaero have created an installer that will put those wonderful Windows 7 games on your Windows Windows 10/11 PC.
Just follow these steps to install Solitaire and the other old-style Windows 7 games on your computer:
1 – Visit this page on the Oldergeeks website.
2 – Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the big Download Now link.
3 -After the zip file has been saved to your computer, right-click on the zipped folder and click Extract All.
4 – Open the newly-created folder and double-click on this file:
Windows7Games_for_Windows_11_10_8.exe
5 – Follow the prompts to install the games on your system.
That’s all there is to it. Now you’ll be able to skip the “modern” games in the Windows Store (along with their ads) and play the same games you enjoyed back when your machine was running Windows 7!
Online options
If you don’t want to download additional software to your computer, or you’re having technical difficulties, don’t fret. There are a number of Windows game that are available online that you can play on your phone or your desktop:
- Solitaire Bliss – Play classic solitaire, as well as FreeCell and Spider Solitaire.
- Hearts.land – Play Hearts against the computer or against other people.
- Play Minesweeper – Diffuse bombs online across different difficulty levels.
Bonus: This post explains how to speed up your Windows 10 PC by disabling ‘Pretty’ features.