Is it wrong to cheat at a game you play against yourself? Not wrong, perhaps a little pointless, though satisfying nonetheless. There are two ways to cheat at Minesweeper, depending on your operating system. The first stops the clock. The second takes all the fun out of the game (it reveals the mines).

Cheat No. 1: Windows 9x

1. Start a game of Minesweeper.
2. Click a square with both the right and left mouse buttons at the same time.
3. Keep holding the buttons down and hit the escape key. You have now stopped the clock and are free to clear incredible amounts of mines in mere seconds.
4. If you want to restart the clock, minimize Minesweeper and then open it again from the taskbar. The clock will restart.

Cheat No. 2: Windows 3.1, 2000, NT, and XP

1. Start Minesweeper.
2. Type "xyzzy" without the quotes.
3. Hit Shift and Enter at the same time.
4. Minimize all your windows. The uppermost pixel in the top left corner of your desktop will turn black when you mouse over a mine, and white when it's safe to click.

How devious do you feel now? Sometimes it's good to be bad.