Failsafe Computer Guardian (1992) 0 Utility DOS

Failsafe Computer Guardian is a DOS TSR utility that prevents programs or other users from accessing or making changes to designated files on the hard drive. It includes password control, user groups, logging, keyboard locking, screen blanking, and support for Microsoft windows. Notably, it can do all of this with minimal DOS memory overhead, only 14k of RAM.

• 1.x

Norton Desktop (1991) 17 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

FastBack (1986) 0 Utility DOS

Fastback, by Fifth Generation Systems, Inc, is a backup utility for DOS. Its key feature is that it can read and write both a floppy disk and hard disk at the same time by making use of dual-channel DMA. Combined with speedy data compression, it can make a very fast backup.

• 5.x
• Plus 1.x
• Plus 2.x
• Plus 3.x
• Plus 6.x

CheckIt (1988) 16 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

Conner Backup Basics (1993) 2 Utility DOS

Conner Backup Basics is a dumbed down version of Conner Backup Exec that only works with their tape drives. This software will not run at all without the appropriate tape drive attached.

• 1.1 (DOS)

Norton Backup (1990) 5 Utility DOS

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.

• 1.x
• 2.x

Memory Commander (1992) 1 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

Trend Micro Chip Away (1993) 0 Utility DOS

Released in the early 90s by the Japanese company Trend Micro Devices, Inc (later just Trend Micro), Chip Away Viruses is a DOS based virus scanner that is intended to run from a hardware product built in to a PC motherboard before the system boots. It includes a custom embeddable DOS (called X-DOS), but it can be run from regular DOS. Trend Micro also produced the products PC Rx (A regular software virus scanner), and PC-cillin (a hardware/software combo that keeps critical boot information in a special device). Users sometimes misinterpreted the name "ChipAway Virus" as being a virus itself.

• 2.x

QEdit (1990) 8 Editor DOS

SemWare's QEdit is a powerful, highly responsive, and scriptable text-mode editor. It was also distributed as shareware. It competed with programs like Borland Brief.

• 2.1
• 3.0

Change Directory Plus (1993) 0 Utility DOS

Change Directory Plus is a small commercial utility distributed with Softdisk publishing's Big Blue Disk magazine. It indexes all folders on your hard drive, and permits you to change in to a deep subdirectory simply by specifying the final subdirectories name.

• 1.x

Back-It (1986) 0 Utility DOS

Back-It, from Gazelle Systems, is a fast and compact hard disk backup utility. It was sometimes part of OEM system bundles. It was kind of low-end, and changed backup formats between releases but otherwise did what it was supposed to do.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

DECTalk PC (1993) 0 Utility DOS

DECTalk was a text to speech system used in automated telephone, radio, and TV systems. It was notably used as an artificial voice by Stephen Hawking. Most DECTalk devices were standalone serial devices, however DEC did produce an ISA expansion card for the IBM PC that contained this functionality. This software is required to operate these ISA cards.

• 4.x

XtraDrive (1993) 0 Utility DOS

XtraDrive is a hard drive compression program that competed against programs like Stacker and SuperStor. XtraDrive was slightly slower, but was priced lower. before DOS and intercepts disk writes at the BIOS level. This allows many disk utilities to work that otherwise would not. Unlike the other drive compression programs at the time, XtraDrive features easy de-installation.

• 3.0

Computer Shopper FastFiler (1993) 0 Utility DOS

FastFiler, from Ziff-Davis Publishing Company and Strange Software LTD, is a rudimentary easy to use file manager shell. It was sold alongside Computer Shopper magazines. While it offers a friendlier interface than the DOS command prompt, it has fewer features and abilities than competing file managers.

• 1.x

DoubleTools for DoubleSpace (1993) 0 Utility DOS

DoubleTools is a set of Windows-based utilities that adds functionality to DoubleSpace, included with MS-DOS 6.0.

• 1.0

PC Tools (1985) 30 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

XTree (1985) 12 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

PC World PowerBase/Best Of Star-Dot-Star (1988) 0 Utility DOS

PC World PowerBase/Best Of Star-Dot-Star is a set of user contributed utilities and tips. These 5.25" floppy disks were distributed alongside the PC-World magazine as a supplement to their long running Star-Dot-Star column.

• Vol I
• Vol II
• Vol III
• Vol VI
• Vol V
• Vol IV

VEDIT (1981) 3 Word Processor Editor DOS

VEDIT, from CompuView, is an extremely powerful, flexible, and customizable editor designed for power users and programmers. It can handle extremely huge files. It has a programmable command mode that can be used to automatically perform complex operations on files. It features a completely customizable keyboard layout and special features for editing programming language source files. supported a large number of terminal types.

• 1.x
• Plus 2.x
• Plus 4.x

InfoCentral (1994) 1 PIM DOS

InfoCentral is Personal Information Manager that can create and store outlines, calendars, contacts, and todo lists using an object-oriented tree structure. It features a customizable database, can "connect" to information from other windows programs, a built-in dialer, and bundles several pre-populated reference "ibases". purchased by Novell, and later owned by Corel. It was initially part of WordPerfect's "Main Street" software family. Software Inc Ecco Professional.

• 1.10

AnyTime (1992) 0 PIM DOS

AnyTime, from Individual Software, is a personal information manager that helps you keep track of day-to-day appointments, events, and to-do items. You can keep a list of family, friends, and business contacts using the Address Book.

• 1.0

Carbon Copy (1990) 2 Utility DOS

Carbon Copy is a remote control desktop program for DOS and later Windows, similar to PCAnywhere. protection. You can not connect to other copies of Carbon Copy if the serial numbers are the same.

• 5.x

Word for Word (1989) 0 Utility DOS

Word for Word is a document converter that features the ability to convert multiple documents automatically, while retaining as much formatting as possible.

• 4.x (DOS)

DiskLock (1993) 0 Utility DOS Windows

DiskLock, From Fifth Generation Systems, and later from Symantec as Norton DiskLock, is a data security tool that can lock a hard disk or individual files or directories so that it requires a password to access any data. It can also log activity to detect unauthorized access attempts. It also features the ability to lock the system after an idle usage period. There were versions for PC and Mac.

• 2.x
• 3.x

QAPlus (1989) 0 Utility DOS

QAPlus is an extensive set of tools to test the functionality of a PC, measure performance, and optimize the configuration. It can test motherboard resources, RAM, video cards, I/O ports, and floppy drives. Later versions supported Microsoft Windows. It competed with tools like Checkit and AMI Diagnostics.

• 3.x