Microsoft Office (1991) 193 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 95
• 97/98
• 2000
• 2001 (Mac)
• XP (2002 Beta)

Norton Utilities (1983) 68 Utility DOS Unix MacOS 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.

• 2.0x
• 3.00
• 3.10
• 4.0
• 4.5
• For System V
• 1.0 for Mac
• 5.0
• 6.0
• 2.0 for Mac
• 7.0
• 3.x for Mac
• 8.0
• 1.0 (95) for Win
• 2.0 (95) for Win
• for NT 4.0
• 3.0 for Win
• 4.x for Mac
• 4.0 for Win
• 5.0 for Mac
• 2001 for Win
• 6.0 for Mac

Norton Commander (1986) 65 Utility DOS OS2 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
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 1.x (OS2)
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 1.x (Win)
• 5.5x
• 2.x (Win)

CorelDraw! (1989) 65 Graphics Publishing Windows OS2 Unix

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

• 1.x
• 2.0
• 2.5
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 5.0
• 3.5 (Unix)
• 6.0
• 7.0

PageMaker (1987) 63 Publishing Windows OS2 MacOS

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 1.00
• 1.0A
• 3.00
• 3.01
• 4.0
• 5.0
• 6.x

PartitionMagic (1995) 54 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
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 7.x

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 39 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

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 38 Publishing MacOS Windows Unix

Adobe Acrobat, first released in 1993, is a tool for creating portable electronic documents. Its documents retain complex formatting when used across differing systems, so that they appear identical when viewed on screen or printed to a printer. Acrobat accomplishes this by encapsulating Adobe's PostSript printer language in to a document file format and offering the ability to embed fonts that are not present on the target system.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

PC Tools (1985) 31 Utility DOS 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.

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

QEMM (1990) 30 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

The Print Shop (1984) 20 Publishing DOS MacOS Windows

The Print Shop is a home oriented publisher capable of creating calendars, banners, greeting cards and other printable goods. It started off on the Apple II and Commodore 64 where it became popular for its simplicity and ease of use. From day one, it featured interactive editing, on-screen artwork/layout selection, print previewing, and a library of customizable clipart.

• For IBM PC (DOS)
• 1.x (Mac)
• The NEW PS (DOS)
• Deluxe
• Deluxe (Win)
• Deluxe 1.x (Mac)
• Deluxe 2.0 (Win)
• Deluxe III
• Premier 5.x (Win)
• Deluxe 6.0 (Win)
• Ensemble III
• 2002 (Mac)

ClarisWorks (1991) 19 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Publishing Database Windows MacOS

ClarisWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool from Claris. In 1998, after version 5.0.2, ClairsWorks was purchased by Apple and re-branded under the "AppleWorks" name. It is not related to the Apple II AppleWorks product.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• For Kids 1.0

Ventura Publisher (1986) 18 Publishing DOS MacOS Windows

Ventura Publisher, originally from Xerox, is a professional desktop publishing program for the GEM graphical environment and later Windows. It has the distinction of being the first popular publishing program for the IBM PC platform. It competed with Aldus PageMaker, which initially was more popular on the Mac platform. There are also versions for Mac and OS/2.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 2.0
• 3.x for Macintosh
• 3.0 for DOS-GEM
• 3.0 for Windows
• 4.0 for Windows
• 4.1.x for Windows
• 4.2

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 15 Graphics Publishing Novelty DOS 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 (DOS)
• 1.0
• 2.0
• 3.0
• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

Norton Desktop (1991) 15 Utility Windows 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 Windows
• 2.0 for Windows
• 1.0 for DOS
• 2.2 for Windows
• 3.0 for Windows

XTree (1985) 15 Utility DOS 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

• 1.x
• 2.x
• Pro 1.x
• Pro Gold 1.x
• Gold 2.x
• Easy
• Gold 3.x
• Gold for Windows 4.0

Ghost (2000) 14 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

Microsoft FrontPage (1995) 13 Publishing Windows

Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG HTML editor/Cuisinart for Microsoft Windows.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 97 (v2)
• 98 (v3)

System Commander (1996) 12 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)

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 11 Publishing Windows

Publisher is a desktop publishing tool from Microsoft geared towards ease of use with the home user. Microsoft publisher can be used to created professional looking newsletters, flyers, forms, and more. It includes guides and wizards that walk users through creation of common document types, while still offering powerful flexibility.

• 1.0
• 2.0
• 95 (3.0)
• 97 (4.0)
• 98 (5.0)

DESQView (1984) 11 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

Packard Bell Navigator (1993) 11 Utility Other Windows DOS

Packard Bell Navigator is an alternate user interface that replaces the Windows 3.1 Program Manager shell. It presents the content of your computer as a series of rooms.

• 1.0
• 1.1
• 3.5
• 3.6
• 3.9

WinZip (1997) 11 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

Sidekick (1984) 11 Utility PIM DOS OS2 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.x
• Plus
• 1.0 for OS/2
• 2.0
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows

PKZip (1990) 11 Utility DOS 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.

• 1.x
• 2.0x
• 2.5 for Windows