Microsoft Office (1991) 287 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
• XP (2002 Beta)

Microsoft Works (1986) 178 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 2.x (Win)
• 3.x (Win)
• 4.0
• 4.5
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 9.0

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 112 Spreadsheet Windows

Lotus 1-2-3 was an early spreadsheet application available for MS-DOS. It became extremely popular in the late 1980s, displacing the former leader VisiCalc. Lotus had difficulties adapting 1-2-3 to the Windows environment, and was overtaken by Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet functionality was also included in Lotus Symphony. Later versions were included in Lotus SmartSuite.

• 1.x (Win)
• 4.x (Win)
• 5.x (Win)
• 97 (Win)
• 9.5 (Office)
• 9.0 (Win)
• 9.1 (Win)
• 9.5 (Win)

Microsoft Plus! (1995) 92 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

PC Tools (1985) 91 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

Norton Commander (1986) 89 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 Excel (1985) 81 Spreadsheet Windows OS2 MacOS

Excel, from Microsoft, is a powerful spreadsheet application for Mac, Windows, and OS/2. Excel was first released for the Mac. When it was ported to Windows 2.x, they started at version "2.0" to one up current Mac version. There was never a DOS version. Instead, DOS and 8-bit platforms used the older Microsoft Multiplan. Excel was later bundled as part of Microsoft Office

• 2.0
• 2.1
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.x
• 95 (7.0)
• 97/98 (8.0)

Microsoft Access (1992) 78 Database Windows

Microsoft Access is a powerful and friendly desktop database. You can design complex tables, forms, and reports through selection and drag-and drop. You can make a fully usable interactive database application without a line of code, but for more advanced functionality it supports built-in Visual Basic for Applications. It is also bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office

• 1.x
• 2.0
• 95 (7.0)
• 97

dBASE (1983) 77 Database DOS Windows

Ashton-Tate dBase was an early popular database management system for CP/M and MS-DOS. It was regarded as one of the killer applications for CP/M, and achieved good success. At the time of conception Ashton-Tate was a garage based company but quickly grew.

• 5.x

PartitionMagic (1995) 50 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

Norton Utilities (1983) 47 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

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 47 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows

IBM/Lotus SmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus software for Windows and OS/2. SmartSuite includes SmartCenter, 1-2-3, Word Pro, Freelance Graphics, Approach, Organizer, and ScreenCam.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 96
• 97
• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 35 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

QEMM (1990) 33 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

ArcView GIS (1996) 32 Graphics Other Database Windows

ArcView, from Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. is a geographical information system program for Win9x/NT.

• 3.0
• 3.3

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

PKZip (1990) 27 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

After Dark (1989) 26 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

Macromedia Director (1994) 21 Presentations Windows

Macromedia Director is a multimedia authoring tool, and is used to create Macromedia Shockwave content. It started off as a Macintosh animation program called VideoWorks.

• 4.x
• 5.x
• 7.x

WinZip (1997) 16 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

Quattro Pro (1987) 14 Spreadsheet Windows DOS

Quattro Pro, initially just named "Quattro", is a spreadsheet application from Borland International. It competed against Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel, and had several advantages including tabbed sheets, and the ability to handle up to a million rows. Quattro Pro was the subject a lawsuit by Lotus, simply because because Quattro Pro copied their menu user interface, but Lotus claimed this was not allowed. This also affected The Twin and VP-Planner.

• 1.0 (Win)
• 5.x
• 6.x (Win)

XTree (1985) 12 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

Microsoft Exchange (1996) 12 Chat PIM Server Windows

Exchange is a proprietary e-mail and groupware server software from Microsoft for Windows Server. The first version publicly sold was Exchange Server 4.0. The number 4.0 was used as it was a replacement for Microsoft Mail 3.x. At release, unlike other desktop/lan e-mail solutions it featured client/server communications rather than using file sharing, used a powerful messaging protocol, and stored all message and address book information in a database. It eventually evolved to include scheduling and many other functions. The Exchange Client (later Microsoft Outlook) supported rich text formatting, and the ability to create such things as e-mail forms.

• 4.0
• 5.5
• 2000

WinImage (1996) 12 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

Microsoft Scenes (1993) 12 Novelty Windows

Microsoft Scenes is a screen saver that displays a slide show of photographs. It was packaged in several varieties with different themed galleries.

• 1.0
• 2.0