DESQView (1984) 12 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

Norton Desktop (1991) 10 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

Micrografx Picture Publisher (1990) 10 Graphics Publishing Windows

Formerly Astral Picture Publisher, Micrografx Picture Publisher is a bitmapped image editor for Windows that offered powerful and feature rich 24-bit color image editing on the Microsoft Windows platform prior to Photoshop for Windows. Picture Publisher was briefly considered the leading image editor on the Microsoft Windows platform until Adobe made Photoshop available for Windows.

• 2.x
• 3.1
• 4.0
• 5.0
• LE
• 6.0

SpinRite (1988) 9 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

Sidekick (1984) 8 Utility PIM DOS 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
• 2.0
• 1.0 for Windows
• 2.0 for Windows

WinZip (1997) 7 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

Microsoft Fine Artist (1994) 7 Graphics Novelty Windows MacOS

Microsoft Fine Artist is a dumbed down Microsoft Bob-like drawing program targeted at children. It was sold alongside, and later bundled with, a word processor called Microsoft Creative Writer.

• 1.x

Microsoft Musical Instruments (1994) 7 Reference Novelty Windows

Microsoft Musical Instruments is a multimedia CD ROM encyclopedia of musical instruments from around the world. Part of the Microsoft Home family of multimedia products.

• 1.x

America Online (1992) 6 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
• 2.x
• 3.0

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 6 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)

NCSA Mosaic (1993) 6 Web Browser Windows

First released in 1993, NCSA Mosaic was the first really popular web browser. Unlike the original browser, WorldWideWeb on NeXT, Mosaic was available for the Microsoft Windows platform and added features such as inline graphics viewing. It was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. NCSA Mosaic was distributed freely for non commercial use, but required a license for commercial business use. It was licensed by a number of third party OEMs, including Microsoft, who used it for the basis of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In 1995, its popularly quickly gave way to Netscape Navigator.

• 1

CheckIt (1988) 6 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

Microsoft Dangerous Creatures (1994) 6 Reference Novelty Windows

Multimedia title from the Microsoft Home series about venomous and dangerous animals, such as spiders, snakes, fish, etc. from around the world. Runs on Windows 3.1 or later.

• 1.0

PC Tools (1985) 5 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

Quattro Pro (1987) 5 Spreadsheet DOS Windows

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
• Pro 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• SE 1.0
• 1.0 (Win)
• 4.x (DOS)
• 5.x
• 6.x (Win)
• 5.6 (DOS)

AppleWorks (1986) 5 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database MacOS Mac OS X

AppleWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool. The original product was a text-based product for the Apple II. The Apple Macintosh and Windows versions were forked from ClarisWorks in 1998 by Apple. At the time, Apple was under a lot of pressure to have a direct alternative to Microsoft Office. There were serious concerns that Microsoft might pull Microsoft Office for the Macintosh from development.

• 5.x
• 6.x

VisiCalc (1982) 5 Spreadsheet DOS

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program for personal computers. It was extremely successful, and pivotal as it was significantly responsible for moving personal computing out of the realm of hobbyists and in to the realm of serious business tools. application suite that also included VisiWord, VisiFile, VisiSpell, VisiTrend/Plot, VisiSchedule and VisiTutor. a GUI based environment. But that did not catch on. The similarly named Visi On Calc spreadsheet is not at all related to VisiCalc, and later had to be renamed to Visi On Plan.

• 1.x
• IV
• Advanced IBM

FrameMaker (1990) 5 Publishing Unix MacOS Other Windows

FrameMaker, originally from Frame Technology Corporation and later Adobe, is a professional document system for creating large, complex documents with highly structured layout. It was often accompanied by FrameReader.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x
• 5.0

Framework (1984) 5 Word Processor Spreadsheet Graphics Communications Database DOS

Originally created by Forefront Corporation for Ashton-Tate and first released in 1984, Framework was an early integrated office suite for DOS. It has a built in word processor, spreadsheet, database, outliner, graphing, and telecommunications.

• 1.0
• Premier 1.x
• II
• III
• XE
• IV

Microsoft MS-DOS Manager (1987) 5 Utility DOS

MS-DOS Manager is a friendly file manager shell provided through OEMs for use with MS-DOS 3.x. It was bundled with systems from Zenith, 3COM, and others. It is similar in operation to the Windows 1.x and 2.x MS-DOS Executive. single or split screen file list (but no drag-and-drop), files may be viewed with details or as a compact list, supports associating file type with external applications, and programs installed on your computer are easily added to an "Applications" dropdown menu.

• 1.00

Corel Office (1996) 4 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Windows

Corel Office is a software bundle that includes WordPerfect and a number of other office applications. It competed unsuccessfully against Microsoft Office. This bundle started out as "Borland Office", was briefly known as "Novell PerfectOffice", then "Corel Office", and under Corel it later became "WordPerfect Office". (Not to be confused with the unrelated ~1990 groupware program, also called "WordPerfect Office")

• 6.1
• 7

4DOS (2004) 4 Utility DOS

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

• 7.50

Publish-IT (1988) 4 Publishing DOS MacOS Windows

Publish-It! is a WYSIWYG desktop publishing tool originally created by the UK based GST Software for the TOS/GEM Atari ST system. There were versions for IBM PC/GEM, Apple II, Macintosh (as "Publish-It! Easy"), and later Microsoft Windows. desktop publishing tools, it is not a full word processor, but rather imports text and focuses on high-quality formatting and printing. budget title for home users. SoftKey also released a version branded as Key Publisher

• 1.x
• Easy 2.x
• 2.0
• 4.0

Toast (1995) 4 Utility MacOS

Toast was a popular CD mastering and burning application for classic Apple Macintosh. It was created by Astarte, who sold it to Adaptec, and later Roxio. Adaptec sold a different program for IBM PC compatibles named CD Creator

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

System Commander (1996) 4 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)