It's been nearly thiry years since Microsoft Office 97 hit store shelves, and there are still secrets tucked inside waiting to be uncovered.
One software enthusiast discovered just such a secret this week while messing around with Office 97, and it's a great reminder that even the most basic productivity software is (for now) made by human beings.
Plus, Clippy makes a cameo!
The news broke on X Sunday, when user @Albacore published a brief video clip demonstrating how to unlock a hidden developer credits sequence in Microsoft Office 97. The trick appears to be moving a window into a series of specific positions around the screen, then typing a specific command to the Microsoft Office Assistant (aka Clippit or Clippy): "This is not a contest."
Reading @stevesi's amazing posts about Office 97's development got me wondering.. could there be more fun stuff hiding under the hood that nobody found yet? Yessir! There's a whole developer credits sequence incl. commentary from Clippit that starts 1 minute in. Take a look! 📹📎 pic.twitter.com/h83VnGfk4EJanuary 11, 2026
At that point a new window appears and a colorful credits sequence plays out for about three minutes, replete with rainbow animated text and other hallmarks of the 20th century.
But what really makes this a fun little surprise is that someone wrote commentary for Clippy that plays out during the credits sequence. So not only do you get a chance ot see which humans actually made Clippy, you get to hear Clippy's feelings about them.
Sure, it's cheesy, but it's also kind of sweet. There's basically no chance anyone would ever stumble on this secret by accident, so you know that whoever worked on this was designing it specifically for their colleagues.
It almost feels intimate, like a secret clubhouse you stumbled into by accident. And while Clippy is perfectly polite and doesn't share any juicy 30-year-old office drama, his running commentary makes the credits sequence feel somehow more human. Honestly, I wish we'd see more creators of software, games and movies add more personality and commentary to the credits in their work as well.
Folks are still poking at Office 97 and other classic software to find more secrets, too, so this may not be the final Easter egg Clippy is hiding!
Follow Tom's Guide on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button!
