Copyright ©2009 by Michael Keller. All rights reserved.
This page was revised on October 30, 2009.
Download Freecell
Pro 6.4 for Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98/ME/XP.
Download Freecell Pro 6.5 for Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98/ME/XP/Vista
FreeCell Pro 6.4 contains bug fixes which should eliminate many of the memory problems of earlier versions, and in particular prevent most cases of system crashes on Windows NT and 2000 systems (special thanks to Hal Antonson and Jim Strasma for helping Adrian diagnose the problems). As always, FreeCell Pro should be regarded as somewhat experimental, and some bugs will still be present. Unfortunately, at the present time, no support is being offered. The program may become open source, allowing anyone to obtain and modify the source code.
FreeCell
Pro 6.5 is the final experimental Solver Evaluation version developed
by Adrian Ettlinger, with two more solvers (by Shlomi Fish and Tom
Holroyd added). There is no documentation available for
this version, and we will not support it. Use at your own
discretion. F8 triggers the Fish solver and F9 the Holroyd
solver. As I now consider FCPro obsolescent, eventually
both versions will disappear once there is an adequate replacement.
Note: fcpro.zip is a standard ZIP archive, and can be opened using any unzipping program.
After unzipping, be sure to leave all three files: fcpro6.exe, fcpro.hlp, and cards.dll in
the same folder. Do not move cards.dll to your Windows\System folder.
Some users on Windows NT/2000 systems have reported that when the program is run for
the first time, the cards appear as narrow rectangles in the left side of the program
window. If this occurs, use Window/Card Size to set the card size to 71 by 96.
Note: The code for dealing the same numbers as Microsoft FreeCell is here.
Freecell Pro plays similarly to Microsoft FC and has the same game numbers. It does not
run under Windows 3.1. It has many options for compatibility with Microsoft
FreeCell, including keyboard support for 0 and 9, optional double-click to send cards to
the freecells, and won-lost statistics. FCPro also has many extra features:
1) It records your solution in standard notation.
Note: After completing a solution you want to
save, use the Copy command (control-C) to copy the solution to the Clipboard, where you
can then paste it into a text file or e-mail message. Do not rely on the xxxxxlog.txt
file. We hope that the bugs which sometimes cause the log file to be garbled
have been eliminated, but cannot be sure of this.
2) It has deals 0 to 8+ billion; 1 to 32000 are the same as
the standard Microsoft games (and the first million are the same as Windows XP). Deals
may be selected from the ranges of 1 to 32000, one million, or 8-billion-plus, at the
user's choice.
3) The number of freecells available can be set from zero(!) through seven.
4) It has a solver (written by Don Woods) built in.
5) It has undo back to the starting move, and redo up to the most recent move. Undo
may be limited to one move or disabled entirely if the user prefers.
6) It saves your position in any deal to be returned to at any time.
7) It has a card finder which highlights all cards of the same rank.
8) It has supermove, which takes maximal advantage of
empty columns when moving long sequences.
9) It has play aids (arrows and lines to show you quickly where columns can be moved and
how much of them can be moved).
10) It has a Next Game command (F5) allowing you to play deals in sequence without typing
the number of each deal.
11) It keeps track of how many attempts are made on each deal.
12) It has a Custom Game command allowing you to input any random deal.
FCPro was designed and programmed by Wilson Callan and Adrian Ettlinger.
Michael Keller obtained Jim Horne's dealing code and Don Woods' solver code, and helped to
beta test FCPro.