An ultra-rare piece of Microsoft history could be hiding on your shelf

In a future edition of The Antiques Roadshow, the hosts might get all excited about a mint Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows… with a sticker on the box instead of a printed Tetris promotion. Veteran Microsoft engineer Raymond Chen explained the reasoning behind using the sticker instead of simply printing what was in the box. Microsoft hadn't locked down the rights for Tetris before the first print run of the packaging, so went with what it had. The Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows debuted in 1990, the same year that Windows 3.0 was released and ushered in an era of Microsoft desktop dominance. Three more iterations of the entertainment pack followed, which included FreeCell, before Microsoft pulled the plug in 1992 (although a Best Of version arrived in 1994, and there was another version for Windows CE later in the 1990s). We'll draw a discreet veil over the ad-festooned version currently in the Microsoft Store. The floppy disks in the box included several card games, Minesweeper, and a Windows version of the fiendishly addictive and massively popular game of the era, Tetris. But it might not have gone that way. Chen explained in a post on his Old New Thing blog, "At the time the first run of boxes were being printed, the negotiations to license Tetris hadn't yet concluded. There was a chance that the negotiations would fall through, and the Entertainment Pack would have to be released without Tetris." So, rather than risk throwing away a production run, Microsoft went ahead with the Tetris-less branding, and added a sticker when the deal was done. Later print runs made the sticker part of the box art, hence the rarity of the original. Microsoft has a bit of a history of inadvertently creating collectibles. Chen recalled an incident with Windows 95, when an anti-piracy hologram on the case depicted a child pointing at a computer monitor and the Windows 95 logo. The child was shirtless, which caused offense in some quarters. Microsoft's solution? A new hologram with the baby in a shirt and overalls. However, some original versions still exist. Chen said, "So if you still have your copy of Windows 95, go look at the hologram. If the baby in your hologram isn't wearing a shirt, you have a genuine collector's item." We can just imagine the excitement at the recording now, as someone produces not only a stickered version of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack for Windows, but also the topless baby version of Windows 95… ®