Minesweeper saved game

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File Format
Name Minesweeper saved game
Ontology
Extension(s) .MineSweeperSave-ms
Released 2009?

The Windows 7 version of Minesweeper introduced a feature that allows you to save games to its own format. It ends with .MineSweeperSave-ms.

Possibly it's the same thing for Vista.

Identification

There are a few parts here.

The first part (the header), begins with signature RGMH, and then contains some binary data.

After that, it contains the UTF-16 encoded string 4D 00 69 00 6E 00 65 00 73 00 77 00 65 00 65 00 70 00 65 00 72 (Minesweeper) and a lot of NULs.

Then, the next string appears: 4D 00 69 00 6E 00 65 00 73 00 77 00 65 00 65 00 70 00 65 00 72 00 2E 00 4D 00 69 00 6E 00 65 00 53 00 77 00 65 00 65 00 70 00 65 00 72 00 53 00 61 00 76 00 65 00 2D 00 6D 00 73 (Minesweeper.MineSweeperSave-ms) which is the filename always uses, and lots of NULs.

The second part is a PNG image, which is the thumbnail image (basically a small visual snapshot) and some binary bytes.

The third part is a XML file for the game's board.

The header for the game's board XML is <Board>, then <SaveVersion>3</SaveVersion> defines the version of the save file (for Windows 7, it's always 3), then the number of mines, width, height, difficulty, etc...

Software

  • Minesweeper on Windows 7/Vista
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