Windows 95 Easter Egg Discovered After Being Hidden For 25 Years

A Windows hacker has found a never-before-seen Easter egg in the Windows 95 Internet Mail application, twenty-five years after the software was released.

When developing software, it is not uncommon for developers to slip in a secret hidden feature, message, or even a mini-game, that users can discover by performing particular actions in a program.

Easter eggs are always fun to find as they provide a small glimpse into a relaxed moment in the normally hectic and serious pace of software development.

This week, a new Easter egg in Windows 95’s Internet Mail program has been discovered by Windows hacker and developer Albacore, opening a secret window that displays a scrolling list of the developer’s names.

Before this discovery, there is no known mention of this Easter egg, meaning it has remained undiscovered for close to 25 years.

“It’s never too late to find easter eggs. Happened to notice what looks like a never before seen easter egg in Windows 95’s / IE4’s Internet Mail. You have to open its About window, select one of the files, and type MORTIMER. Names of the program’s developers will start scrolling,” Albacore tweeted yesterday.https://player.vimeo.com/video/529718129

To access the Easter egg, users need to launch Internet Mail, click on Help, and then About. When the About screen opens, click on the listed comctl32.dll file, so it becomes highlighted, and then type MORTIMER on your keyboard.

After typing ‘mortimer,’ a small window will be displayed that will begin to list the Internet Mail developer’s names, as shown in the video above that was shared with BleepingComputer.

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Windows 95 Team and NT4 Team Easter eggs

In addition to the Easter egg found in Internet Mail, Albacore also shared a video of a previously known Windows 95’s Product Team Easter egg that lists all of the operating system’s developers.

Albacore told BleepingComputer that the final version of this Easter egg could be launched by creating a folder named “and now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for”, then renaming it to “we proudly present for your viewing pleasure”, and finally renaming it to “The Microsoft Windows 95 Product Team!”

To make it easier to launch the Easter egg, Albacore patched shell32.dll so that it could be launched by opening a folder named ‘Clouds,’ as demonstrated in the video below.

If you played video games in the days of Windows 95, watching this video will immediately bring back a sense of nostalgia as you listen to the MIDI music playing in the background.

Albacore also shared video of the Windows NT 4.0 team’s Easter egg that was found in beta builds of NT 4.

Windows NT 4.0 betas contain their own variant of the Windows 95 Product Team easter egg. The revision found in builds 1130-1175 includes short but real credits which mention people like @davepl1968 — who these days runs the excellent Dave's Garage YouTube channel. pic.twitter.com/3OVeMeeFlT

— Albacore (@thebookisclosed) March 27, 2021

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Update 3/27/21: Added further info about the Windows 95 Team Easter egg. Added NT 4.0 Easter egg.