Microsoft closing servers for numerous Windows 8 Microsoft Casual Games in April

Xer152 MC said:I will try restarting the computer with the time changed but other than that it did not work no matter what time I chose, even if I had a medal from an older month like others have said.

Achievements for the WP versions of Microsoft Solitaire Collection, Microsoft Minesweeper, Microsoft Mahjong and Wordament are fully obtainable and a major fix was recently implemented for Windows Phones. Please pop your 77 achievements across these 4 titles if you have not done so as yet. Message me for more on how to get these titles as they are no longer in the Store with the exception of Wordament. In the case of medals (except for Wordament as there is none for that), the medals obtained in the Windows 8 versions are shared across the WP versions via cloud save as well (even though WP versions have their own). For the 3 titles, you need to get 20 medals across both versions to unlock the 20 medal achievement in each game on WP. Fortunately for Microsoft Solitaire Collection (Win 8 and WP), the medals are exactly the same, so it doesn't matter where you get them although completing 100 games in Klondike, Spider, and FreeCell and clearing 100 boards in Pyramid and TriPeaks in the Win 8 version unlock the respective medals across both versions (whereas the WP version requires 200 completions for the first 3 and 200 clears for the last 2). Microsoft Minesweeper has 30 medals across both versions (10 shared, 10 PC exclusive, 10 phone exclusive). Mix and match. They will count towards the 20 medal achievement on the WP version. All medals are obtainable. Microsoft Mahjong has 28 medals across the Win 8 and WP versions (12 shared, 8 PC exclusive and 8 phone exclusive). However, 3 medals on the PC are potentially discontinued as they require playing and winning a Lightning Tile, a Golden Tile and a Score Attack challenge. The goals are easy. If you can still access the challenges (even with backdating), do them. Find easy ones to do. You do not have to do anything else in the Daily Challenge (PC version only has 3 achievements). They will count towards the 20 medal achievement on WP. Enjoy.

Please note that the WP versions of the Casual Games DO NOT run on iOS and Android. While there are old iOS and Android stacks for Wordament (Version 2.8), they cannot connect to servers. Microsoft Solitaire Collection on iOS and Android connects with the Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile versions of the game. Microsoft Mahjong on those two OSes is a standalone version that is not connected to the Windows 10 versions. To date, there is no version of Microsoft Minesweeper for iOS or Android. But that may change soon.

VisibleRaptor5 said:And it’s probably a dumb question, but you can’t use Windows Phone versions of Solitaire, etc. to pop achievements for the Windows 8 versions, correct?

pandaboy said:You might be able to pop some stuff but not for Daily Challenges though. WP never supported that (except for the Windows 10 versions of Solitaire and Mahjong but the latter does not work properly anymore).

You can still play them if youre lucky enough to download these games just in time or have a virtual machine that has these games. So if anyone has one that would be nice.

I am a day late and a dollar short. Ive seen some people still unlock achievements in this game. I have completed the win10 version of solitare. I have a few questions:

1. Is this game even still accessible?
2. If i can access the game will my achievements transfer?
3. Are all of the achievements obtainable via VM if you can play it

mi2good4u said:1. Is this game even still accessible?
Yes
2. If i can access the game will my achievements transfer?
No
3. Are all of the achievements obtainable via VM if you can play it
dont need VM to play it, just Windows 11...

Unable to get all achievements due to server shutdown.

but I have seen other players unlock those achievements in 2023, when the server closed in 2021 xD I have no idea how they do it.

DBi Cyrax said:To expand on 1 - It's only still accessible for your store account if you obtained the licence for that platform's version when it was freely available. If you did not obtain a licence back then, you can not play this game from your own store account.

planchetflaw said:The Windows 8 and Windows 10 versions share the same license, even though the Win 8 version was removed. Just download the Windows 10 version for the license, cancel the install and install the Windows 8 version instead. It will work. I recommend online playing for the non-upgrade specific achievements. When it comes to the upgrade specific achievements, resetting data followed by offline playing is recommended.

Anyone get the error code 009000 for the daily challenges? I have done everything in the guide to make the old daily challenges work and it was and then I went on today to wrap up the last daily challenge and it began to give me that error code. I tried resetting, restarting and uninstalling (which reset all of my progress for some reason). Anyone have an idea how to fix it?

VisibleRaptor5 said:could you expand on that? How do I force the windows 8 version to download instead? Can I do that on a windows 10 operating system? or I need an old windows 8 OS?

TOBY 1K NO BE said:No Windows 8 OS is needed. You just need to get the licenses from the Store (if you do not have them), uninstall or stop the installation of the games, block the Store from auto-updating the games and find the installers of the Windows 8 versions of the games.

Szab said:You need to slow down your internet connection to a speed below 150 kbps (not to be confused with KB/s, in KB/s it'd be 18.75), I'm usually sticking around 130 kbps and it's working for me 95% of the time flawlessly. Also, make sure you're changing a date to the one before the 2021 Jan, cause almost everything past that will result in 002000 error.

Sometimes the error can pop up even when your internet speed is lower than what I mentioned above. You can just hit "Try again" and it'll go away.
Doing so also lets you see the progress you make for the month and see what challenges are completed and what aren't, with faster speed the game tends not to retrieve this information from the server and it appears as if you did not make any progress for the month, although the game still knows you had this progress, even when it doesn't show it.

I'm using my router's dashboard to slow down the internet speed of my Laptop, but you may try to use software like NetLimiter to do the same for a specific application, instead of an entire device.

M1DNYT3 said:That totally is working! Thank you for the tip!

M1DNYT3 said:Can you check to see if this works for Minesweeper too?

VisibleRaptor5 said:Hey mate, sorry, it has been a while. As of now, some people have reported that across all titles, where dailies are still sorta working, it's not necessary to slow down the internet connection anymore to access them.
For the Win 8 Solitaire Collection, I can confirm that. But I cannot check or say anything for other titles, you have to check that yourself, sorry. There's a theory that everything works fine for the Win 8 titles which have made it to Win 10 as a reworked game. Some titles weren't updated up to the Win 10 version, so they probably have their servers for dailies completely dead.

I can confirm that the dailies in Minesweeper work for me without slowing down my internet. Guess I'm going to buy premium and knock out these gold medals.

Yes slowing down my internet works to get the dailies.

Szab said:Date changes work for me. I did 5 challenges for March 13, 2020 (I just changed the year) today. No issues.

Can you please guys tell me what to do to get the dailies to work on Jigsaw? I can't seem to make it happen :/