Forget Solitaire and Minesweeper. The best game ever included with Windows was a virtual pinball table. With blinking lights and arcade sounds, 3D Pinball for Windows seemed like magic back in 1995, and is surprisingly playable even today.

忘记纸牌和扫雷 。 Windows附带的最好的游戏是虚拟弹球桌。 带有闪烁的灯光和街机声音，Windows的3D Pinball早在1995年就看起来像是魔术，即使在今天，它仍然可以令人惊讶地播放。

But don’t check your Start menu: Microsoft hasn’t included Space Cadet Pinball in any release since Windows XP, and unlike Microsoft Paint, it’s probably not going to see a Windows Store reboot anytime soon.

但是不要检查“开始”菜单：自Windows XP以来，Microsoft尚未在任何发行版中添加Space Cadet Pinball，并且与Microsoft Paint不同 ，它可能不会很快恢复Windows Store的运行。

Why isn’t this game bundled with Windows anymore? And is there any way to bring it back yourself? Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, before we show you a way to rip this game from an official Microsoft download.

为什么该游戏不再与Windows捆绑在一起？ 有什么办法可以把它带回来吗？ 让我们走一段记忆的路，然后向您展示一种从Microsoft官方下载中窃取此游戏的方法。

为什么从Windows Vista中删除弹球 (Why Pinball Was Dropped From Windows Vista)

“3D Pinball for Windows – Space Cadet” is the most 90s Microsoft name possible. It’s unnecessarily long, includes the biggest buzzword in gaming circa 1995—3D!—and jams the words “for Windows” in there just to remind you which operating system you’re using. But despite the Extremely Microsoft Name, the game itself didn’t come from Redmond.

“适用于Windows的3D Pinball – Space Cadet”是90年代微软可能使用的名称。 它的长度不必要地长，包括大约1995年游戏中最大的流行词-3D ！，并在其中插入“ for Windows”一词只是为了提醒您您使用的是哪个操作系统。 但是，尽管拥有极其微软的名字，但游戏本身并非来自雷德蒙德。

No, Microsoft commissioned Texas-based developer Cinematronics to build 3D Pinball, which was intended to show off the gaming capabilities of Windows 95 in a world where most PC developers were sticking with DOS.

不，微软委托德克萨斯州的开发商Cinematronics来构建3D Pinball，该产品旨在在大多数PC开发人员都使用DOS的世界中展示Windows 95的游戏功能。

Development of 3D Pinball was hectic, as this Daily Dot article outlines, but the team was able to pull it off. Microsoft included the game in “Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95,” a separate $50 CD that also included the precursor to Internet Explorer. The game was later bundled with Windows NT, ME, and 2000; Windows XP was the last version to include the game.

正如Daily Dot这篇文章所概述的那样，3D Pinball的开发非常忙碌，但团队得以实现。 Microsoft将游戏包含在“ Microsoft Plus！”中。 Windows 95”，另外一张价值50美元的CD，其中还包括Internet Explorer的前身。 后来该游戏与Windows NT，ME和2000捆绑在一起。 Windows XP是包含该游戏的最后一个版本。

Why didn’t Windows Vista and later version of Windows come with Pinball? Because Microsoft engineers couldn’t port the game to the 64-bit architecture without things breaking. Microsoft employee Raymond Chen explains:

为什么Windows Vista和更高版本的Windows不附带Pinball？ 因为微软工程师无法在不中断的情况下将游戏移植到64位体系结构。 微软员工Raymond Chen解释说 ：

In particular, when you started the game, the ball would be delivered to the launcher, and then it would slowly fall towards the bottom of the screen, through the plunger, and out the bottom of the table. Games tended to be really short.

特别是，当您开始游戏时，球将被传送到发射器，然后球将缓慢地掉落到屏幕底部，通过柱塞并掉到桌子底部。 游戏往往很短。

That sounds…not fun. And it proved nearly impossible to fix: the source code for the game was a decade old and not really documented. There wasn’t really anyone to call about the game, either: Cinematronics, which developed the game back in 1994, was bought by Maxis in 1996; Maxis was in turn bought by EA in 1997. All the developers of 3D Pinball had long since moved on.

听起来...不好玩。 而且事实证明，几乎不可能修复：该游戏的源代码已有十年的历史，并且没有真正的文档记录。 关于这款游戏，实际上也没有任何人可以称呼：1994年开发这款游戏的Cinematronics于1996年被Maxis收购； Maxis随后在1997年被EA收购。3D Pinball的所有开发人员早就开始前进。

So Chen made the call: 3D Pinball wasn’t included in the 64-bit version of Windows XP, or in any Windows version since. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get it running, if you really want to.

因此，陈打电话了：3D Pinball未包含在64位版本的Windows XP中，也未包含在任何Windows版本中。 但这并不意味着您就无法运行它。

如何在Windows的较新版本上安装3D Pinball (How to Install 3D Pinball on Newer Versions of Windows)

Microsoft didn’t want to include a 32-bit game with 64-bit operating systems, which is understandable, but 3D Pinball still works perfectly fine on modern operating systems like Windows 10 thanks to reverse compatibility. There are iffy third party sites out there offering an unauthorized download of 3D Pinball, but we won’t be linking to them. Instead, as How-To Geek forum member Biswa points out, Microsoft does offer free downloads of Windows XP Mode, initially intended to provide reverse compatibility for Windows 7 users. 3D Pinball’s files are right inside, and we can get them running on Windows 10 with little fuss.

微软不想包含32位游戏和64位操作系统，这是可以理解的，但是3D Pinball由于具有向后兼容性，因此在Windows 10等现代操作系统上仍然可以完美运行。 那里有很多第三方网站提供未经授权的3D Pinball下载，但我们不会链接到它们。 相反，正如How-To Geek论坛成员Biswa指出的那样 ，Microsoft确实提供了Windows XP Mode的免费下载，最初旨在为Windows 7用户提供反向兼容性。 3D Pinball的文件就在其中，我们可以轻松地在Windows 10上运行它们。

First, download Windows XP Mode from Microsoft. Note that you might have to scroll past a Surface ad to get to the actual download.

首先， 从Microsoft下载Windows XP Mode 。 请注意，您可能需要滚动到Surface广告才能到达实际下载位置。

Save the file to your Downloads folder—it will be around 470MB. It will be called “WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe”.

将文件保存到“下载”文件夹-大约470MB。 它将被称为“ WindowsXPMode_en-us.exe”。

Ensure that you can see file extensions, then change the “.exe” to “.zip”.

确保您可以看到文件扩展名 ，然后将“ .exe”更改为“ .zip”。

You can now open the file in 7Zip or WinRAR (the native Windows Explorer archive functionality will not work.)

您现在可以在7Zip或WinRAR中打开文件(本机Windows资源管理器存档功能将不起作用。)

Head to the Sources folder, then open “XPM.”

转到Sources文件夹，然后打开“ XPM”。

Inside this archive we’ll find a file called “VirtualXPVHD,” which is a virtual hard drive with a complete Windows XP installation.

在此存档中，我们将找到一个名为“ VirtualXPVHD”的文件，该文件是具有完整Windows XP安装的虚拟硬盘驱动器。

That’s right: we’re looking at an archive inside an archive inside and archive—it’s turtles all the way down. Open this archive and you’ll see the complete Windows XP file structure from back in the day.

没错：我们正在查看一个内部存档和一个内部存档-一直都是乌龟。 打开此档案，您会从当天开始看到完整的Windows XP文件结构。

Head to Program Files > Windows NT and you’ll find an entire folder called “Pinball.”

转到“程序文件”>“ Windows NT”，您将找到一个名为“ Pinball”的完整文件夹。

Drag that to your desktop, or wherever you want. You’ve now got Pinball on your Windows 10 system!

将其拖到您的桌面上或任何需要的位置。 现在，您已在Windows 10系统上安装了弹球游戏！

Enjoy!

请享用！

替代方法：从旧的​​Windows XP光盘中提取3D弹球 (Alternative: Extract 3D Pinball from an Old Windows XP Disc)

If you’re on a limited connection and don’t want to download XP mode, you can also find that 32-bit Windows XP CD you still have in a closet somewhere and rip the game directly from that.

如果连接受限且不想下载XP模式，则还可以找到壁橱中仍然有32位Windows XP CD并直接从中盗版游戏。

To start, create a “Pinball” folder on your Windows 10 computer—for simplicity’s sake, I’m putting it in the top level of the C:\ partition, but you could put it anywhere.

首先，在Windows 10计算机上创建一个“ Pinball”文件夹，为简单起见，我将其放置在C：\分区的顶层，但您可以将其放置在任何位置。

Now insert the Windows XP CD and open up the Command prompt. Switch to your optical drive by entering it’s name; for me this meant typing F:\ and hitting enter, but you’ll need to check which letter your optical drive is using. Next, type cd I386 to change directories and press Enter.

现在插入Windows XP CD并打开命令提示符。 输入名称，切换到光盘驱动器； 对我来说，这意味着键入F:\并按Enter键，但是您需要检查光盘驱动器使用的是哪个字母。 接下来，键入cd I386以更改目录，然后按Enter。

Now we’re in the folder where the game lives—we just need to extract it. We’ll do this in stages, starting with all the of the files named “pinball”:

现在我们位于游戏所在的文件夹中，我们只需要提取它即可。 我们将从所有名为“ pinball”的文件开始逐步进行此操作：

expand -r pinball*.* C:\pinball

This uses the “expand” command to extract every file starting with the word “pinball” over to the C:\pinball folder we made earlier (if you put your folder somewhere else, use that location instead.)

这将使用“ expand”命令将每个单词以“ pinball”开头的文件解压缩到我们之前创建的C：\ pinball文件夹中(如果将文件夹放在其他位置，请改用该位置。)

We’ll run a similar command for the sounds, fonts, and a picture of the table included for context:

我们将针对声音，字体和用于上下文的表格图片运行类似的命令：

expand -r sound*.wa_ C:\pinball
expand -r font.da_ C:\pinball
expand -r table.bm_ C:\pinball

Finally, we need to copy one more file:

最后，我们需要再复制一个文件：

copy wavemix.inf C:\pinball

When you’re done, head to the Pinball folder you created earlier: if everything worked, you should have 70 files.

完成后，转到您先前创建的Pinball文件夹：如果一切正常，则应该有70个文件。

Now go ahead and launch pinball.exe!

现在继续启动pinball.exe！

It’s that easy. You’ll probably want to move the folder somewhere else later, but at least you know it’s all working.

就这么简单。 您稍后可能会希望将该文件夹移动到其他位置，但至少您知道它已经可以正常工作。

If you grew up with Windows but don’t use it today, don’t worry: you can run Windows software in Ubuntu with Wine, or on your Mac by using Wine on macOS. You’ll need to run the above steps on a Windows computer, but the resulting files run very well in Wine.

如果您是在Windows上长大的，但今天不使用它，请不要担心：您可以在带有Wine的Ubuntu中运行Windows软件 ，或者通过在macOS上使用Wine在 Mac上运行Windows软件 。 您需要在Windows计算机上运行上述步骤，但是生成的文件在Wine中运行得很好。

翻译自: https://www.howtogeek.com/321156/why-microsoft-dropped-3d-pinball-from-windows-and-how-to-bring-it-back/