Norton Commander (1986) 122 Utility DOS

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 5.5x

Norton Utilities (1983) 50 Utility DOS

The Norton Utilities is a suite of disk and system utilities designed to enhance system performance and stability. It started off as a set of disk utilities written by Peter Norton, and later was sold by Symantec. It competed against Central Point PC Tools and the Mace Utilities. In 2003, Norton Utilities was merged with Norton SystemWorks, but later split back out.

• 2.0x
• 3.00
• 3.10
• 4.0
• 4.5
• 5.0
• 6.0
• 7.0
• 8.0

PC Tools (1985) 37 Utility DOS

PC Tools, from Central Point Software, is a system and disk utility suite similar to the Norton Utilities. Central Point also produced a similar set of tools for the Apple Macintosh known as MacTools. Central Point Backup, bundled as part of PC-Tools, was also offered as a standalone product.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 1.0 for Windows
• 9.x

Norton Desktop (1991) 26 Utility DOS

Norton Desktop is a powerful desktop shell and file manager bundled with many additional tools. There are versions for both DOS and Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0 for DOS

PartitionMagic (1995) 22 Utility DOS Windows

A tool from PowerQuest, and later Symantec, that enables manipulation of partitions through its own bootable media. PartitionMagic can shrink, grow, or move partitions without the need to backup and restore files in that partition. It supported a variety of file systems, and the core DOS-based parition tool fit on a bootable 1.44mb floppy disk. It was extremely popular, and made installing or removing multiple OSes much easier.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

CheckIt (1988) 22 Utility DOS

CheckIt, from TouchStone Software Corporation, is a diagnostic tool for generic PC/XT/AT compatible computers. It can perform tests on RAM, hard disks, video cards, floppy disks, motherboard resources, and I/O devices. It has an easy to use menu interface but can also run tests non-interactively. It was followed up by the product WINCheckit.

• 1.x
• 2.1
• 3.0
• LAN 2.x
• Pro 1.x

Ghost (2000) 21 Utility DOS

Ghost, originally released in 1995 by Binary Research and later under Symantec with the "Norton" title, is a PC cloning and imaging tool. It can image and restore drives to drives of different sizes, supports many different file systems, and supports many different archiving and communications methods. Ghost 7.5 and earlier support running from DOS. Later versions are Windows-only.

• 7.x

QEMM (1990) 20 Utility DOS Windows

Quarterdeck QEMM is a DOS Extended Memory Manager for 386+ computer which allows you to make use of memory beyond the 640kb barrier. It can also be used with QRAM, a utility for freeing up the 640k base memory.

• 5.x
• 6.x
• 7.x
• 8.x
• 9.x

XTree (1985) 17 Utility DOS

XTree is an easy to use text-mode file manager. It pioneered the use of a GUI-like hierarchy tree, and provides many integrated file viewers. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Norton Commander

• 1.x
• 2.x
• Pro 1.x
• Pro Gold 1.x
• Gold 2.x
• Easy
• Gold 3.x

PKZip (1990) 15 Utility DOS

Pkzip is the most common archiver for MS-DOS based systems. It implements a an open compression method and is much faster than other archivers of its time.

• 1.x
• 2.0x

SpinRite (1988) 13 Utility DOS

SpinRite, by Gibson Research, is a tool that can diagnose, repair, and rejuvenate the low-level formatting and optimize the interleave of MFM and RLL (ST412/506 interface) hard disk drives. Its pattern testing ability is also useful for verifying the operation of SCSI and IDE hard drives.

• 1.x
• II
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.0

System Commander (1996) 13 Utility DOS

System commander, from V Communications, Inc, was a commercial boot manager for PCs. It offered a graphical menu and the ability to hide other partitions from the selected OS. It supported a variety of OSes including DOS, Windows 9x, Windows NT/2000, Linux, OS/2, and various Unixes.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• Deluxe 4.00
• 2000 (5.x)

America Online (1992) 9 Web Browser Chat DOS Windows

America Online was a proprietary dial-up online service that eventually grew to offerer Internet access. In the mid 1990s AOL was very heavily promoted. Every month or two, you were sure to get a free AOL floppy disk or CD-ROM in the mail. AOL originated as PC-Link.

• 1.x

DESQView (1984) 7 Utility DOS

DESQView, from Quarterdeck, was a DOS application multi-tasker and in later versions functioned as an X client for applications on remote UNIX systems. It competed against IBM Topview. The original DESQ was just a task switcher, but subsequent versions offered preemptive multitasking of well behaved DOS programs on real-mode 8088 PCs. It gained popularity when DESQView 386 added virtual x86 support. This enabled the ability to multi task many poorly behaved programs, and was often used on BBSes due to its excellent COM port handling. It was later overtaken by OS/2 and Windows.

• 1.x
• DESQView X 1.x
• 2.x
• DESQView X 2.x

MenuWorks (1988) 6 Utility DOS

Menu Works, from PC Dynamics, Inc, is a DOS based menu program that lets you boot your computer to a friendly menu of options rather than a confounding DOS prompt. It supports mice, features custom menu creation, sub menus, automatic scanning for known programs on your hard drive, on-line help, built in file management, and a built in file search function.

• 2.x
• Advanced 2.0

McAfee VirusScan (1995) 5 Utility DOS Windows OS2

McAfee VirusScan was a very popular and reliable virus scanner during the late 90s. Notably, they distributed a free shareware version of their product. VirusScan was often pre-loaded with OEM computers.

• 2.x
• 4.x

Norton Anti-Virus (1990) 5 Utility DOS Windows

Originally written by Symantec and sold as Symantec Antivrus for Macintosh, it became part of the "Norton" branded products sold by Symantec after they acquired Peter Norton Computing. Norton Anti-Virus became a popular product on DOS, Windows, and Macintosh (SAM was renamed to NAV in 1998) and battled the then-new threat of malicious software. In 2015, Symantec unified their security product lineup under the single "Norton Security" product. It was also bundled with Norton SystemWorks.

• 1.0
• 1.5
• 2.0
• Michelangelo Edition

4DOS (2004) 5 Utility DOS

4DOS is a command line interpreter replacement for command.com that adds many new features.

• 7.50

Sidekick (1984) 5 Utility PIM DOS

Borland Sidekick is a DOS based PIM (Personal Information Manager) and one of the first widely-used TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs. The key feature of Sidekick was that one could use Sidekick's utilities while using most other MS-DOS applications. This was important because MS-DOS had no built-in multi-tasking or task switching capabilities.

• 1.x
• Plus
• 2.0

Central Point Anti-Virus (1992) 5 Utility DOS

Central Point Anti-Virus was a DOS-based antivirus program developed originally by an Israel company, CARMEL Software Engineering Ltd. as "Turbo Anti-Virus", and licensed by Central Point Software Inc. It was the basis for Microsoft's Anti-Virus for DOS and Windows (MSAV and MWAV). In 1994 it was acquired by Symantec Corporation and merged into Norton Antivirus.

• 1.x

Grammatik (1988) 4 Utility DOS

Grammatik is a standalone grammar checker, and was possibly the first grammar checker for personal computers. Later versions were built in to Word Perfect. It competed against RightWriter.

• II
• III
• IV

ACT! (1987) 4 PIM DOS

ACT!, or "Activity Control Technology", originally from Conductor Software, and later Contact Software and then Symantec, is an easy to use business relationship management system targeted at traveling sales professionals. It can track things like billable time and expenses.

• 1.10 (DOS)

Direct Access (1988) 4 Utility DOS

Direct Access is an easy to use menuing program designed to simplify access to applications on systems with many programs loaded on the hard drive. It is customizable, includes screen blanking, and includes password protection and usage logging. Later versions also detect common programs already installed on the hard disk.

• 4.x
• 5.x

Memory Commander (1992) 4 Utility DOS

Memory Commander, from V Communications, Inc, is a memory manager similar to QEMM or 386MAX, but can expand the DOS base memory beyond 640K with some kinds of applications.

• 3.x
• 4.x

Lotus Agenda (1988) 4 PIM DOS

Agenda is DOS based Personal Information Manager that features customizable categories, and many data retrieval features. It was criticized for not being easy to use and lacking features found in other PIMs. It was replaced by Lotus Organizer.

• 1.x
• 2.0