Norton Commander (1986) 137 Utility Windows

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 (Win)
• 2.x (Win)

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 93 Utility Novelty Windows

Microsoft Plus! was an add-on package to Windows that added desktop themes, screen savers, sound effects, power-toys, and other assorted goodies for the home user. Plus! 95 also included Internet Explorer 1.0, which was not included in all Windows 95 distributions.

• 95
• 98

After Dark (1989) 74 Novelty Windows

After Dark, from Berkeley Systems, Inc, is a set of entertaining screen savers for Mac and Windows. After Dark for Windows started off as "Magic Screen Saver" for Windows 2.x. After Dark was most famous for its "Flying Toasters" screen saver. Afterdark was very popular on both the early Macintosh computers and Windows 3.0, as neither included any kind of screen saver or screen blanker that would help prevent screen burn-in.

• Magic ScreenSaver
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• Tenth Anniversary

Norton Utilities (1983) 59 Utility Windows

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.

• 1.0 (95) for Win
• 2.0 (95) for Win
• for NT 4.0
• 3.0 for Win
• 4.0 for Win
• 2001 for Win

PartitionMagic (1995) 58 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
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 7.x

QEMM (1990) 57 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.

• 9.x

PC Tools (1985) 49 Utility Windows

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.

• 2.0 for Windows

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 46 Graphics Publishing Novelty Windows

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

WinZip (1997) 40 Utility Archive Windows

WinZip is an archive utility for Microsoft Windows that creates and extracts ZIP files, along with a degree of support for MS Cabinet (cab), ISO, JAR, TAR, and GZipped files.

• 6.x
• 7.0

Norton Desktop (1991) 36 Utility Windows

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 Windows
• 2.0 for Windows
• 2.2 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows

Windows Resource Kit (1991) 28 Utility Windows

The Microsoft Windows Resource kit is a set of supplementary tools for managing and deploying Microsoft Windows. The first Windows Resource kit was released in 1991 for Windows 3.0. Most, but not all, Windows versions after that had corresponding Resource Kits. These were often freely downloadable from Microsoft.

• 3.x
• 95
• NT 4.0
• 98
• 2000

Microsoft BOB (1995) 20 Novelty Windows

Microsoft BOB is a Windows 3.1 graphical shell intended for novice users. It presents your desktop as a series of "rooms" with various selectable objects, and assists you with a friendly animated guide. It features vector based graphics that scale to any size or resolution screen, supports user profiles, and includes rudimentary editor, calendar, address book, and checking programs. It was created as a response to Packard Bell Navigator and is somewhat comparable to Apple At Ease and 3DNA.

• 1.00
• 1.00a

Sidekick (1984) 18 Utility PIM Windows

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.

• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows

XTree (1985) 15 Utility Windows

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

• Gold for Windows 4.0

McAfee VirusScan (1995) 14 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
• 7.0

PKZip (1990) 13 Utility Windows

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.

• 2.5 for Windows

RightWriter (1987) 9 Utility Windows

RightWriter is a grammar / structure checking utility. You can feed it a document, and it will produce a marked up copy listing high level critiques such as readability, delivery strength, and jargon. It competed with Grammatik, but RightWriter generally produced superior results.

• 5.0 for Windows

PC-Tools File Manager (1994) 7 Utility Windows

This is a standalone version of the enhanced filemanager that was bundled with PC-Tools for Windows. This version was released after Symantec acquired Central Point and discontinued the PC-Tools product.

• 3.0

Direct Access (1988) 6 Utility Windows

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.

• 1.0 (Win)

WinImage (1996) 6 Utility Windows

A tool used for reading, writing, and editing disk images. Most of the disk images (.IMG or .IMA) on this site can be written with this tool. This is a SHAREWARE product, but is posted here for your convenience.

• 3.0
• 6.1

Norton Backup (1990) 6 Utility Windows

Norton Backup, from Symantec, is a fast and easy to use backup tool for MS-DOS. The original 1.0 suffered from reliability problems, but these were fixed in 1.1. It does not include a backup scheduler. It competed against backup utilities such as PC Tools Deluxe PC Backup, Taketwo Manager, Gazelle Systems Back-It, Backup Pro, FastBack Plus, and Keep Track Plus.

• 2.x (Win)

WINCheckIt (1994) 6 Utility Windows

WINCheckIt, from TouchStone Software Corporation, was a popular diagnostics and system cleaning utility for Microsoft Windows 3.1. It diagnoses issues with CMOS/BIOS setup, finds IRQ problems, tests I/O devices and memory, benchmarks system performance, removes unused application files, and fixes system files. WinCheckIt is the successor to their earlier DOS based CheckIt diagnostics.

• 2.0
• 4.0

Fontmonger (1992) 6 Utility Windows MacOS

FontMonger, from Ares Software, is a font tool that can convert fonts between many different formats, move characters between fonts, and edit characters. Publisher's Type Foundry](/product/publishers-typefoundry) font editor. At release FontMonger was considered the only practical Windows-based program for modifying fonts. However, it was not considered a professional tool as it lacked kerning and hinting controls.

• 1.0.x
• 1.5.x

Catz (1996) 6 Novelty Windows

Catz, from PF Magic, Inc, is a fun program that places an animated cat on your desktop for you to play with.

• 1.0
• II

Newshell (1995) 5 Windows

Newshell, or the "Shell Technology Preview Update", is a shell update for Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 that gives it the appearance and desktop from Windows 95. Newshell is a beta product, and only meant to demonstrate how the upcoming NT 4 would look.

• Beta