If you’ve been a reader of this site for any amount of time, you might remember that a few years ago we went through a flurry of home remodeling. We ripped up all the carpets, put down wood and tile floors, and stripped the bathrooms down to the studs and rebuilt them. The last of this was done two years ago, and we thought it really would be the last.

But no. I cocked up the bathrooms so bad, the showers in particular, that water was leaking everywhere and the drywall was rotting away. So this spring we’ll see the house once again filled with the implements of renovation, as I have to tear the bathrooms apart once again and rebuild them. This time, I’m not using sheetrock, I’m using waterproof cement board. I’m not using plastic panels, I’m using ceramic tile. And I don’t care what my wife says, I’m sealing that son of a bitch up with three inches thick of caulk all the way around. It’s getting done right this time, or else.

Or else next time we just sell the house.

So, it’s finally happened. Windows Vista, formerly known has Longhorn, has at last been released to the public. I’ve been using it myself for nearly three months, so I’m really getting to know all the ins and outs of it, but there’s still hidden stuff that mystifies me lurking in the shadows of Vista.

Like the new games. Vista comes with the standard run of basic games, like Solitaire and Mahjong, and everyone’s old favorite Minesweeper. While I was testing the beta versions of Vista last year I would always load up Vista Ultimate, the version that unlocks everything available in the operating system. And the games were always there. But then I actually had to buy licenses of Vista, and the version I went with for the company was Vista Business. I loaded that up, and found out there were no games. The “Games Explorer” was empty. Oh well, no big deal I never play the games anyway.

But then I started loading Vista on other computers here at work, and I found out that there are people who definitely do still play the games. The lady who covers the reception desk at lunch, particularly, can’t live without Solitaire to get her through that hour. So I started to research: were the games deliberately left out of Vista Business? Or were they still there, hidden?

It turns out they were still there, hidden. And it took a posting at Lockergnome for me to finally figure out how to turn them on.

They are there but unavailable by default. In the Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off. They should be there.

So we’ve got the games back, and the lady at the front desk is happy. It’s kind of puzzling why Microsoft would turn games off by default in Vista Business, but I guess they’re trying to get on the good side of corporations who don’t want their employees playing Purble Palace on the company dime. Wisely they didn’t strip them out completely, or I would have been in a lot of trouble.