Discontinued Microsoft Products(versionmuseum.com)
versionmuseum.com
Discontinued Microsoft Products
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-microsoft-products
120 comments
Libraries to read XML: 3 at least
Two things stood out to me: I really liked Sunrise and nothing seems to have done a good replacement of it. The other thing is that I really miss the Windows 95-style UIs for some reason. The UIs were generally responsive and the tooltips popped up quickly. I miss bland highly ordered rows of icons.
Doesn't mention Platform Builder, a tool for creating embedded projects. Just a wizard really, stapled onto an old version of Visual Studio. Didn't do much - select from a very limited list of drivers and chip support to start your project.
I see that IronRuby is there. They should also add IronPython to that list. That has been dead for a while now. It hasn't progressed since version 2.7.9 from 2018.
which is a darn shame. I think the lack of cffi support really hindered IronPython from catching on. the marshalling of data types was incredibly smooth and pleasant to use, and it was quite performant, but cffi is an indirect dependency of so many Python libraries that I couldn't use it for much besides "hello world."
The MS product I miss the most is Midtown Madness 2, with San Francisco and London. It was the best city racing game I ever played, it had the best game mechanics, it was fast but easily maneuverable, games nowadays require hard training to run one minute without hitting into something. The maps and cars available were very entertaining and I remember freely downloading a lot of vehicles of very different types.
Agreed. MS Combat Flight Sim 2 also hit that sweet spot of "just felt right" that few if any others managed.
Microsoft Infopath, still one of the best examples of how bad marketing can doom even the best product.
I still remember my annoyance when Entourage was replaced with the vastly inferior Outlook for Mac.
Give us clippy back.
How about QBasic?
For comparison, the total killed products here: 343, since 1975. That's about 7.8 per year.
Killed Google products: 194, since 1996 [0]. That's about 8.4 per year.
So all-in-all, Google isn't doing that much worse.
[0] https://killedbygoogle.com/
Killed Google products: 194, since 1996 [0]. That's about 8.4 per year.
So all-in-all, Google isn't doing that much worse.
[0] https://killedbygoogle.com/
It's not the same because Google's products are all (or at least mostly?) services, whereas many of the Microsoft products listed are simple releases with no continuing support required for them to still work (e.g. 3D Movie Maker).
"Killed" (can't use it anymore), vs. "Discontinued" (might stop working on new operating systems at some point in the future).
"Killed" (can't use it anymore), vs. "Discontinued" (might stop working on new operating systems at some point in the future).
The top product on the killed by Google list is AngularJS, which was replaced by... Angular.
Not saying its like that with all the products on there, but one would have to make two entirely new lists to make a fair comparison.
Not saying its like that with all the products on there, but one would have to make two entirely new lists to make a fair comparison.
Not only that, but most of Microsoft's discontinued products were replaced by arguably better alternative products.
Windows 95 -> 98 -> XP -> ...
Microsoft Works -> Office
COBOL -> ... -> Visual Studio
Unlike Google, where, for example, Reader is gone and they don't have any alternatives.
Windows 95 -> 98 -> XP -> ...
Microsoft Works -> Office
COBOL -> ... -> Visual Studio
Unlike Google, where, for example, Reader is gone and they don't have any alternatives.
Microsoft Windows is not on the list because it had direct descendent upgrades. 95 to 98 to XP etc provided a smooth upgrade experience for the end-user.
Works and Office were completely different product lines, and Works was free for the vast majority of its users, while Office was obviously not. It's not apples to apples.
COBOL was not in Visual Studio for ~20 years. Someone in 1996 couldn't have just fired up Visual Studio for Cobol after it was deprecated back then.
Works and Office were completely different product lines, and Works was free for the vast majority of its users, while Office was obviously not. It's not apples to apples.
COBOL was not in Visual Studio for ~20 years. Someone in 1996 couldn't have just fired up Visual Studio for Cobol after it was deprecated back then.
Hey Google+ was a great replacement for Reader. And social media hermeticism was a great replacement for Google+.
True, but Microsoft has plenty of these too. Look at the specific list of retired Microsoft websites and services. There's a lot of them (69 to be exact):
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
I don't disagree. Just seemed a bit unfair to lump Microsoft's whole discontinued list in with Google's killed list.
This is actually a great point, and one thing that has me skeptical of Stadia and other upcoming game-streaming services.
People who never got rid of their NES can still play their games. If it breaks, they could buy another one, or maybe even try to fix it themselves.
Once a service shuts down, you don't really have anything to keep or to revisit. If there was a Stadia-only game in the future, could you somehow get a copy and run it on local hardware to keep playing if Stadia shut down? Could you do it easily.
Super Mario Bros, Classic Tetris, etc. they still have active communities of speed-runners, tournaments, etc. It's kind of weird that something with the level of cultural impact a videogame can have could all of a sudden disappear because it doesn't exist anywhere but in a centralized space outside the control of the people who experienced it.
People who never got rid of their NES can still play their games. If it breaks, they could buy another one, or maybe even try to fix it themselves.
Once a service shuts down, you don't really have anything to keep or to revisit. If there was a Stadia-only game in the future, could you somehow get a copy and run it on local hardware to keep playing if Stadia shut down? Could you do it easily.
Super Mario Bros, Classic Tetris, etc. they still have active communities of speed-runners, tournaments, etc. It's kind of weird that something with the level of cultural impact a videogame can have could all of a sudden disappear because it doesn't exist anywhere but in a centralized space outside the control of the people who experienced it.
You don't even need to imagine it!
Satellaview [1] was a "game streaming" service for SNES games in Japan way back when. Sure, it was more like the "game passes" of today, in that you paid a subscription to be able to access games for limited time.
Back then the games were actually sent and stored to the user's device, and played from there, with additional content in the form of high-quality music and audio streamed if you played in the correct times of day.
Now, since the games themselves have been backed-up by conscious individuals, the streamed data was inaccessible, which renders a bunch of the games practically unplayable since the company shut the service down.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#SoundLink
Satellaview [1] was a "game streaming" service for SNES games in Japan way back when. Sure, it was more like the "game passes" of today, in that you paid a subscription to be able to access games for limited time.
Back then the games were actually sent and stored to the user's device, and played from there, with additional content in the form of high-quality music and audio streamed if you played in the correct times of day.
Now, since the games themselves have been backed-up by conscious individuals, the streamed data was inaccessible, which renders a bunch of the games practically unplayable since the company shut the service down.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellaview#SoundLink
Sometimes I feel like removing ownership from the consumer is the goal of moving everything into a subscription service.
Software developers have discovered that people are bad at measuring value and they are bad at delivering additional value over time. Subscriptions always cost more and force a decision every year.
I play Super Mario brothers on my old Nintendo every couple of years. No revenue has been realized since 1986 or whatever. Just a payment for the NES and game.
Today, you can get unlimited access to virtually all music made in the last century or every show made by Disney ever for less than a subscription to some goofy text editor.
I play Super Mario brothers on my old Nintendo every couple of years. No revenue has been realized since 1986 or whatever. Just a payment for the NES and game.
Today, you can get unlimited access to virtually all music made in the last century or every show made by Disney ever for less than a subscription to some goofy text editor.
And even better they can grab a pile of FOSS software, hide it behind their paywalls and don't give a neither a dime, not code back.
It is, because you can't get a continuous stream of payment with ownership.
Services have been profitable partially because it eliminates volatility in the amount of demand.
Services have been profitable partially because it eliminates volatility in the amount of demand.
The goal is to extract more revenue from the consumer, losing ownership is largely a byproduct of that.
See "Games as a service is fraud":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw
If you have an hour, I'd highly recommend giving this a watch. It is really sad to see any form of media die forever at the whim of a corporation. Games are especially prone to this unfortunately
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUAX0gnZ3Nw
If you have an hour, I'd highly recommend giving this a watch. It is really sad to see any form of media die forever at the whim of a corporation. Games are especially prone to this unfortunately
Some of the products in that list also got superseded by better tools with different names.
Yea, but going through the list, a lot of the products are vain rebrands. Some of which still exist in one form or another. Some haven't exactly died either, they were just absorbed into "bigger" products.
Though, RT being put out to pasture.... I had to develop an app for that arbitrary lockout piece of trash. Whoever thought of RT and whoever approved it, deserves a life-long raging case of crabs and... like... a monthly visit of dysentery.
Though, RT being put out to pasture.... I had to develop an app for that arbitrary lockout piece of trash. Whoever thought of RT and whoever approved it, deserves a life-long raging case of crabs and... like... a monthly visit of dysentery.
The list specifically lists products that didn't have a specific drop-in upgrade path. So the rebrands are different products that users had to make a decision about purchasing their successor (if there was one) or go with a competitor.
At least some of these products had free replacements, or replacements that were bundled with future versions of windows. Microsoft Internet Explorer is on the list, and I'm pretty sure its replacement (Edge) costs nothing.
That's an interesting statistic, but it's difficult to compare the two apples-to-apples. Most of Microsoft's discontinued products cost actual money to purchase. Most of the Google discontinued products were free.
In addition, many of the Google products listed are essentially acqui-hires. Products with limited user base. Microsoft has very few of those. So if you wanted to really do a full analysis, those would be some things to examine. It would be really interesting to see.
In addition, many of the Google products listed are essentially acqui-hires. Products with limited user base. Microsoft has very few of those. So if you wanted to really do a full analysis, those would be some things to examine. It would be really interesting to see.
You’re painting this in a very biased light. When MS discontinued Software X people who paid for it could maybe even use it to this day. Some of that software was also a one time release with no maintenance to speak of. And most other pieces of software just had the functionality rolled into a bigger suite (with or without a gap in between) because it made sense.
Comparing this to killing a service is not a fair way to put it. The fact that they were acqui-killings as a justification or consolation is a bit of a stretch. The difference between killing a service and abandoning (discontinuing) a product is not just one of semantics, it’s huge.
Comparing this to killing a service is not a fair way to put it. The fact that they were acqui-killings as a justification or consolation is a bit of a stretch. The difference between killing a service and abandoning (discontinuing) a product is not just one of semantics, it’s huge.
I disagree with your premise, but even then... Microsoft has discontinued lots of online services too! Almost 70:
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
Big companies cancel things. Priorities change, opportunities shift. It happens.
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
Big companies cancel things. Priorities change, opportunities shift. It happens.
You're correct, they did discontinue/killed a lot of stuff. I just noticed you insist on painting them in a much worse light throughout the discussion compared to how you paint Google. And you don't consider that MS is also exactly twice the age of Google (22 extra years to discontinue/kill products and services).
I know whoever brought Google in the discussion was engaging in a bit of whataboutism but I think we can agree that while MS has some big failures (Windows Phone/Mobile sized), they are not standing out among other big names in the industry and are nowhere near as egregious with the practice as Google.
I know whoever brought Google in the discussion was engaging in a bit of whataboutism but I think we can agree that while MS has some big failures (Windows Phone/Mobile sized), they are not standing out among other big names in the industry and are nowhere near as egregious with the practice as Google.
I feel as if Microsoft has released overall far more products than Google, though I don't have a resource on hand to substantiate that claim. I think the statistic is only valuable if it's killed-per-released product.
Many of the Microsoft products continued working after support ended, or were replaced by something else with the same functionality.
Google's products stop working completely, and are rarely superseded. They just go away.
Google's products stop working completely, and are rarely superseded. They just go away.
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Might be worth comparing the ratio of killed products vs. supported products as well, instead of just the absolute number for the number of killed products. I dont have any data to back up this assertion, but i have a feeling that this ratio would differ very significantly between Google and MSFT.
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We should compare the time between officially discountinued and no longer usable. For Google products it's the same date but I did and do use MS products long after they are killed off*
* Image Composer, MS Money, Media Center, Movie Maker, WinDIff, Web Matrix, Silverlight, the list goes on...
* Image Composer, MS Money, Media Center, Movie Maker, WinDIff, Web Matrix, Silverlight, the list goes on...
You should normalize this by the company size. Larger company is expected to discontinue more products.
I tried a few deeper cuts, and wow, this is really thorough! Has anyone noticed anything they missed?
Windows 10 S seems odd as you can still purchase products, brand new, that have it. So how is it discontinued?
Windows 10 "S edition" has been discontinued, in favor of Windows 10 "S Mode". What the distinction is, I'm not sure.
The distinction: S Mode can be enabled/disabled by an admin on any Windows 10 system, as a toggle in Settings. S Edition was briefly sold as if it was a different product or different version of Windows; to disable it one would need to purchase Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro, and there was no way to reenable it.
A lot of these disconnected products have pretty much direct replacements with slightly different names, same functionality, and probably even data continuity. Or were hardly separate products to begin with.
Which ones? Products are only on the list if they didn't have direct descendant drop-in replacements that were straightforward for the user to upgrade.
Frontpage/Expression Web - but I guess WYSIWYG web dev products don't really exist anymore?
FrontPage and Expression products are all in there:
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
List seems inaccurate/incomplete.
E.g. Courier is on it, but Courier was never more than a design concept video, so considering it a "discontinued" product is off.
Similarly, no mention of the original Microsoft Surface - a 30 inch tabletop computer that shipped from 2008 to 2011.
E.g. Courier is on it, but Courier was never more than a design concept video, so considering it a "discontinued" product is off.
Similarly, no mention of the original Microsoft Surface - a 30 inch tabletop computer that shipped from 2008 to 2011.
The original Surface table was renamed to MS PixelSense and it's in the list:
https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/discontinued-micros...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense
Microsoft Comic Chat, never forget
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Comic_Chat
Someone is still making comics out of them: https://www.bonequest.com/. Very NSFW. I remember reading these in college and shocked it's still around.
I remember it well, and talking emojis seems like something of an homage in part to this. Of course it would be a nice slack bot as well :-)
Windows Live Writer! I remember that. I actually miss it; it was a great desktop UI for WordPress.
It’s been open sourced now:
https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter
https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter
I still miss Sunrise. Outlook calendar doesn’t compete last time I checked, so I’ve been using Fantastical plus some other integrations for special calendar subscriptions.
Picking random products from the list:
- Microsoft Chart: now just a feature of Excel - Microsoft Works: seems like you can just replace it with MS Office? - Windows Photo Viewer: virtually identical to "Photos" on Windows 10, apart from the new UI framework. - Microsoft Cobol: superseded by Visual Studio which apparently also supports Cobol? - Microsoft Frontpage: apparently replaced by Microsoft Expression Web, which is itself discontinued - Microsoft Encarta: I have good memories, but in the age of Wikipedia probably not very profitable - Microsoft DVD Maker: Kind of sad, but I don't remember the last time I burned a Video DVD
I guess this helps explain why nobody really feels like Microsoft is deprecating a lot of products. Most things on this list are either replaced by something better, not relevant anymore or never really found a market.
- Microsoft Chart: now just a feature of Excel - Microsoft Works: seems like you can just replace it with MS Office? - Windows Photo Viewer: virtually identical to "Photos" on Windows 10, apart from the new UI framework. - Microsoft Cobol: superseded by Visual Studio which apparently also supports Cobol? - Microsoft Frontpage: apparently replaced by Microsoft Expression Web, which is itself discontinued - Microsoft Encarta: I have good memories, but in the age of Wikipedia probably not very profitable - Microsoft DVD Maker: Kind of sad, but I don't remember the last time I burned a Video DVD
I guess this helps explain why nobody really feels like Microsoft is deprecating a lot of products. Most things on this list are either replaced by something better, not relevant anymore or never really found a market.
A few things:
Windows Photo Viewer: Indeed, Microsoft has had several iterations of image viewers over the years. They all have nuances and pros/cons. But in the end, not everyone was happy about the "upgrades." WPV was deprecated and articles like this showed up: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-...
Works: Works was a free (with new PCs) entry-level office suite. MS Office is of course not free. They are completely separate product lines that happen to share some (but not all) file formats.
Cobol: I believe Visual Studio only supported Cobol starting in 2015. That's a ~20 year absence from the original.
The list shows deprecated products that didn't have a specific drop-in, straightforward upgrade path for the end-user.
Windows Photo Viewer: Indeed, Microsoft has had several iterations of image viewers over the years. They all have nuances and pros/cons. But in the end, not everyone was happy about the "upgrades." WPV was deprecated and articles like this showed up: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-get-windows-photo-viewer-...
Works: Works was a free (with new PCs) entry-level office suite. MS Office is of course not free. They are completely separate product lines that happen to share some (but not all) file formats.
Cobol: I believe Visual Studio only supported Cobol starting in 2015. That's a ~20 year absence from the original.
The list shows deprecated products that didn't have a specific drop-in, straightforward upgrade path for the end-user.
MS Office the desktop software isn't free, but you can use the online versions for free[1]. Considering the Works was never quite at feature parity with Word anyway, the gimped down version of Office Online is a decent alternative.
You also have the benefit of not having inconsistencies in file formats, which was always frustrating when working with Works and trying to edit files from Office.
[1] https://products.office.com/en-us/free-office-online-for-the...
You also have the benefit of not having inconsistencies in file formats, which was always frustrating when working with Works and trying to edit files from Office.
[1] https://products.office.com/en-us/free-office-online-for-the...
Works was actually a completely separate codebase from an acquisition, and, as a result, many common features actually worked differently from Microsoft Office. This was problematic as it made upgrading from Works to Office difficult as many people who used Works were used to Works and found Office unfamiliar. I have been told by more than one person that they preferred Works to Office over the years.
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Microsoft's issue is a little different in that they rarely retire a concept but frequently cycle through implementations. My experience over the years has been less of a Google style "there's no more Reader, where do I go now?" and more "oh, now I have to learn a new but extremely similar app that does the same thing under a different name and set of terms."
> "there's no more Reader, where do I go now?"
This is to me a reminder that Google is more willing to push through newish markets (and sometimes destroy the emerging players as a side effect).
FrontPage getting buried doesn't hit hard because there was already dozen of other more interesting editors, and Frontpage never was the front runner nor did Microsoft really push for it to be the best.
Same for Skype, if tomorrow it was to be sunsetted, it wouldn't be without pain and it will piss a ton of people that use it daily, but that pain would be gone in 2 weeks once they get used to other messaging platforms.
In contrast people are still pissed at Google for many of their buried products that basically took down their market with them, or never get a better replacement.
This is to me a reminder that Google is more willing to push through newish markets (and sometimes destroy the emerging players as a side effect).
FrontPage getting buried doesn't hit hard because there was already dozen of other more interesting editors, and Frontpage never was the front runner nor did Microsoft really push for it to be the best.
Same for Skype, if tomorrow it was to be sunsetted, it wouldn't be without pain and it will piss a ton of people that use it daily, but that pain would be gone in 2 weeks once they get used to other messaging platforms.
In contrast people are still pissed at Google for many of their buried products that basically took down their market with them, or never get a better replacement.
See Skype -> Lync -> Skype -> Teams for example
You mean MS Comic Chat -> MSN -> MSN Messenger -> Windows Live Messenger -> Lync / Skype -> Teams
I miss MSN so much. It was simple, worked with Pidgin, now I don't even know what new IM services even work with Pidgin in 2019.
In a perfect world I shoulda been able to use Slack, Discord etc on Pidgin still.
I miss MSN so much. It was simple, worked with Pidgin, now I don't even know what new IM services even work with Pidgin in 2019.
In a perfect world I shoulda been able to use Slack, Discord etc on Pidgin still.
It is very interesting that concepts like custom emoticons, group voice chat, group chat adminstration, message formatting, all existed in MSN, and all but disappeared from publicly-popular products until Slack, and Discord came up.
Skype, when WLM was shut down, was _very_ primitive in its communication options, let alone moderation tools. Sure, things like TeamSpeak and whatnot existed for organized voice chat, but that's not something my mother would be able to use. Skype didn't even have group voice calls back then, let alone video. Emoticons are still limited to the standard ones (or nowadays, seasonal sponsored emoticons), group chat moderation is limited to text commands with no accompanying visual interface (it is not even possible to show who is a group's moderator or owner). Heck, Discord and alike still don't even allow multi-window messaging!
Not to mention the client itself never lasted more than a couple years without a full interface redesign.
Of course, in an ideal world I'd love for some sort of standard interface that allowed me to locally confederate all my services, but sadly Slack and Discord both have TOS rules that require the use of _their_ client, even though their bot APIs are basically feature-complete.
Skype, when WLM was shut down, was _very_ primitive in its communication options, let alone moderation tools. Sure, things like TeamSpeak and whatnot existed for organized voice chat, but that's not something my mother would be able to use. Skype didn't even have group voice calls back then, let alone video. Emoticons are still limited to the standard ones (or nowadays, seasonal sponsored emoticons), group chat moderation is limited to text commands with no accompanying visual interface (it is not even possible to show who is a group's moderator or owner). Heck, Discord and alike still don't even allow multi-window messaging!
Not to mention the client itself never lasted more than a couple years without a full interface redesign.
Of course, in an ideal world I'd love for some sort of standard interface that allowed me to locally confederate all my services, but sadly Slack and Discord both have TOS rules that require the use of _their_ client, even though their bot APIs are basically feature-complete.
> Existed, died, resurrected
There are quite a few examples of this, both industry wide and specifically from MS. Sometimes it is due to the first implementation being bad, sometimes it is that some part of the tech simply isn't quite ready (or isn't yet quite cheap enough for mass adoption), sometimes it is solving a problem that at the time is very niche but later becomes a more common need.
Think tablets. Anyone else remember MS's big "pen computing" push with tablet & hybrid style PCs that were too heavy, ran too warm, and didn't have batteries that lasted long enough? Or in a similar vain, more general and arguably more successful in their time, PDAs which died out but our phones basically now fill the same role.
There are quite a few examples of this, both industry wide and specifically from MS. Sometimes it is due to the first implementation being bad, sometimes it is that some part of the tech simply isn't quite ready (or isn't yet quite cheap enough for mass adoption), sometimes it is solving a problem that at the time is very niche but later becomes a more common need.
Think tablets. Anyone else remember MS's big "pen computing" push with tablet & hybrid style PCs that were too heavy, ran too warm, and didn't have batteries that lasted long enough? Or in a similar vain, more general and arguably more successful in their time, PDAs which died out but our phones basically now fill the same role.
There is a universal law which dictates that messaging clients must get worse.
There is no shipping messaging client that is a material improvement over what was available in 2000.
There is no shipping messaging client that is a material improvement over what was available in 2000.
I think you can use those in Pidgin?
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins
https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins
wow just realized pidgin seems instagram-capable
https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram
Wow! I was never aware of those plugins!
Can I use them on Android?
Can I use them on Android?
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Isn't Lync based on Office Communicator?
Yeah, the “enterprise” product lineage is more Live Communicator -> Office Communicator -> Lync -> Skype for Business (kinda direct link to, even though it’s SaaS only) -> Teams
From what I hear the Lead Architect of Teams used to work on Lync. So I can easily agree that Teams is a child of Lync. Some things are improved though I hear a lot of people having issues with Teams sadly.
Teams is supposed to be the replacement. It's kind of trash as an instant messenger client, for entirely interface-related reasons - they built it in Electron, so it is difficult to pop out separate windows for individual chats, so one is stuck with tabbed soup.
Although it's probably the best voip and video conferencing software they have put out.
Although it's probably the best voip and video conferencing software they have put out.
The choice to rebrand Lync as Skype for Business after the Skype aquisition has caused endless confusion.
Skype and Skype for Business are almost completely unrelated, and barely interoperate.
Skype and Skype for Business are almost completely unrelated, and barely interoperate.
There's also a lot of really weird niche products in the business software list, like the Microsoft Stat Pack (literally just some government data on a CD-ROM), or Dynamics RMS Headquarters (a set of tools for managing a retail business).
Microsoft Works was always an odd duck -- a cut-down relative of Office (except not actually Office) for home users. Merging this into Office was a sensible decision that should have happened many years ago, TBH.
Microsoft Works was always an odd duck -- a cut-down relative of Office (except not actually Office) for home users. Merging this into Office was a sensible decision that should have happened many years ago, TBH.
Not when you understand the economics/operation of 1980s desktop software.
Multitasking OSes? Nope - not in the early-mid 1980s.
You want to use another app? Save your work, quit your current app and launch the new app.
Cooperative multitasking eventually arrived, but if you didn't have enough RAM, it would be painful to switch amongst multiple apps.
Then there's the cost of the apps. You want a word processor? ~$250. Spreadsheet? Another ~$250. Presentation app? guess what? Another ~$250.
Or you can buy one of these new-fangled integrated apps that include word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, database and some other stuff. These integrated apps were jack-of-all-trades going for the 80% functionality that people needed. All for the price of one of the dedicated apps.
AppleWorks, MS Works, Ashton-Tate Framework filled a need at the low end.
There were always going to be users who didn't want/need the full functionality of a typical dedicated word processor/spreadsheet or didn't want to pay for features they didn't need/use.
Once Excel was fleshed out and MS bought Powerpoint, the Office suite of apps was born, priced at less than the total cost of the 3 individual apps.
The standalone desktop apps were living on borrowed time.
Multitasking OSes? Nope - not in the early-mid 1980s.
You want to use another app? Save your work, quit your current app and launch the new app.
Cooperative multitasking eventually arrived, but if you didn't have enough RAM, it would be painful to switch amongst multiple apps.
Then there's the cost of the apps. You want a word processor? ~$250. Spreadsheet? Another ~$250. Presentation app? guess what? Another ~$250.
Or you can buy one of these new-fangled integrated apps that include word processor, spreadsheet, graphics, database and some other stuff. These integrated apps were jack-of-all-trades going for the 80% functionality that people needed. All for the price of one of the dedicated apps.
AppleWorks, MS Works, Ashton-Tate Framework filled a need at the low end.
There were always going to be users who didn't want/need the full functionality of a typical dedicated word processor/spreadsheet or didn't want to pay for features they didn't need/use.
Once Excel was fleshed out and MS bought Powerpoint, the Office suite of apps was born, priced at less than the total cost of the 3 individual apps.
The standalone desktop apps were living on borrowed time.
FWIW, AmigaOS had full preemptive multitask in 1985.
Actually some things were better in Works, I especially remember being able to embed parts of a spreadsheet seemlessly into a text processor document and be able to update it one place. That was amazing back in 1995.
And importantly, Microsoft Works came bundled for free with new PCs. MS Office was not.
Wasn't it WordPad that shipped free, and Works or Word that were upsells?
Frontpage => VS Code
What? FP let you do WYSIWYG html and then generated horrendous markup. VS Code is first and foremost a text editor.
More accurately Web Matrix => VS Code
More accurately Web Matrix => VS Code
Text editor + IDE
Projects evolve, Frontpage was a dead road. It evolved somewhat, but it finally came together with VS Code.
What is more popular now to develop web projects than VS Code?
Projects evolve, Frontpage was a dead road. It evolved somewhat, but it finally came together with VS Code.
What is more popular now to develop web projects than VS Code?
Frontpage > Office SharePoint Designer > SharePoint Designer 2013 (now EOL)
Also there was Microsoft Expression Web, also EOL.
I’m remembering a deal Microsoft made with Adobe to stop making Microsoft Expression products in exchange for more platform support, or something. I forget the details.
Also there was Microsoft Expression Web, also EOL.
I’m remembering a deal Microsoft made with Adobe to stop making Microsoft Expression products in exchange for more platform support, or something. I forget the details.
I have a hard time beliving that this one is real:
https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/discontinued/discontinu...
https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/discontinued/discontinu...
"The project was announced by MSN UK on April 30, 2003, and was widely ridiculed before being declared a hoax by Microsoft on May 12. On May 13, another Microsoft press release stated that although the project had not been a hoax, it had been cancelled because it would do little to promote the MSN brand."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo
https://web.archive.org/web/20030705022312/http://www.europe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILoo
https://web.archive.org/web/20030705022312/http://www.europe...
Looks more like a Google product.
My local Children's Museum had a PC running Musical Instruments for years. I loved playing around with it; easily the only Microsoft software I've ever felt strongly about (in a non-negative way, anyway).
They have a youtube channel apparently, I'll have to check it out when I get a chance.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDYfttV26QFApHJnMG6U1zw
I've heard from relatives that Microsoft MapPoint made a good tool for road trips. I always wanted to try it.
> Visual FoxPro (1992-2007)
Tell that to the thousands of businesses still using it.
https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=foxpro
Tell that to the thousands of businesses still using it.
https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=foxpro
The majority of county boards of elections in Ohio are using a voter registration management application that is still written in Visual FoxPro (and still uses DBF files as the back-end).
Aside: It has a recently-added ToTP implementation that replaces their prior "scan a barcode" system of "two factor" authentication. Of course, you can just open the DBF files directly in another tool and manipulate them w/o any "authentication". The mind boggles.
Aside: It has a recently-added ToTP implementation that replaces their prior "scan a barcode" system of "two factor" authentication. Of course, you can just open the DBF files directly in another tool and manipulate them w/o any "authentication". The mind boggles.
Direct DBF manipulation is small potatoes. Since the database container (.DBC) has to be writable to be of much use, use that same tool to add some triggers that will run whatever FoxPro code you want (which can call just about any Win32 API you want). If you’ve got FoxPro installed, skip the hex editor and open the DBC like a table (it is a DBF). If one is going to use DBFs, skip the database container feature if you can. It was a good idea maybe 25 years ago (umm, not really), but it was a different time and long before Microsoft started getting their security shit together.
—
Former Fox team member
—
Former Fox team member
Still using it, but most of our major applications have been ported to .NET / SQL Server.
That being said, still some 50+ smaller / departmental style applications that continue to work, and will likely keep running in their current form for the next 10+ years.
In fact, someone asked me a random foxpro question in the middle of typing this comment haha.
That being said, still some 50+ smaller / departmental style applications that continue to work, and will likely keep running in their current form for the next 10+ years.
In fact, someone asked me a random foxpro question in the middle of typing this comment haha.
Microsoft Bob (1995-1996), R.I.P.
Somehow Xenix is not mentioned
What, nobody mentioned Microsoft Bob yet? :)
That thing was terrible, but I'm kinda sad that a Microsoft Bob-like window manager (or whatever you want to call it) never panned out.
Yes, it blows for productivity, but it had "personality" - it was colorful and silly unlike your average UI today which either looks "industrial" or subscribes to the "everything is flat and bland" school of thought.
Oh well. Here's to you, Bob:
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html
Edit: Ninja'd by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21776932
That thing was terrible, but I'm kinda sad that a Microsoft Bob-like window manager (or whatever you want to call it) never panned out.
Yes, it blows for productivity, but it had "personality" - it was colorful and silly unlike your average UI today which either looks "industrial" or subscribes to the "everything is flat and bland" school of thought.
Oh well. Here's to you, Bob:
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob.html
Edit: Ninja'd by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21776932
> it was colorful and silly
You misspelled inflexible. :)
You misspelled inflexible. :)
I really think they've missed the boat by not bringing back a NLP version of Clippy...
The frustrating bit to me is when they bought up Creature House Expression (A Vector art application) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_House_Expression rebadged it as a Microsoft product and then killed it. It was a really great vector tool in it's time. Buying up software companies and then killing the software is a problem we rarely talk about. AutoDesk has also done this with Softimage XSI, which, ironically Microsoft used to own as well.
I still sorely miss Microsoft Money and have found Quicken/et al to be terrible alternatives. Any recommendations? Strongly prefer offline entirely, and would be happy if it's cross-platform and can import standard bank statement exports.
I'm a happy user of Moneydance: http://moneydance.com/
Offline (but can download from banks or import files) and cross platform
Yeah, Microsoft Money. It's available for free. I have a Python script that converts QFX (Quicken) files to OFX.
https://pypi.org/project/fixofx/
https://pypi.org/project/fixofx/
One interesting discontinued Microsoft product missing in this list is Xenix.
I still use Microsoft Money every day. It’s great! There’s nothing like it available now. Runs on the desktop, no internet needed. All data stays on my machine. Ledger, scheduled bills, and cash flow forecast are all I need.
They should open source the Basic 7.1 compiler and push to make it cross-platform. It was procedural, but super fast. Also not interpreted. It compiled and linked, just like a C compiler.
Appears to be missing "Microsoft Delta" version control system.
Also Microsoft's pre-Excel spreadsheet offering, "Microsoft Multiplan".
Also missing Xenix.
Isn't clear how they define "product". For example Cardfile is listed but that was never a standalone product just a program bundled with Windows. If they are going to include discontinued Windows components, there are a lot of those. (And discontinued components or features of other products too, like Office or SQL Server.)
Also Microsoft's pre-Excel spreadsheet offering, "Microsoft Multiplan".
Also missing Xenix.
Isn't clear how they define "product". For example Cardfile is listed but that was never a standalone product just a program bundled with Windows. If they are going to include discontinued Windows components, there are a lot of those. (And discontinued components or features of other products too, like Office or SQL Server.)
The one that caught my eye was 3D movie maker. When I was young my siblings and I really had fun with it.
Basically there was a background, and you could add characters to it and make them move, rotate, scale, and do premade animations. Then you'd add music and sound effects. It seemed very cutting edge to us at the time.
Basically there was a background, and you could add characters to it and make them move, rotate, scale, and do premade animations. Then you'd add music and sound effects. It seemed very cutting edge to us at the time.
I don’t see Microsoft Songsmith on the list.
One of the Mac Works coders here: A slight correction. Works for the Mac was published in 1986, not 1988.
AppleWorks for the Apple II was written by Rupert Lissner of Scotts Valley, CA for Apple Computer. AppleWorks was released early in 1984 and was written in 6502 assembler. At that time, Steve Jobs was really anxious to have software on the new Macintosh computer that would make it appealing to business users. Lissner and Jobs discussed porting AppleWorks to the Macintosh.
Lissner teamed up with former IBM salesman and Apple exec Don Williams of Santa Cruz, CA to begin work on the Mac version. Don Williams was the creator of Desktop Plan and Graph'N'Calc for the IBM PC. Their company was named Productivity Software. Within months, AppleWorks became very successful so Lissner decided he didn't need to work on the Mac version. He dropped out without writing any code.
At that time I (Michael Watson) was hired as their first employee. Williams then hired Brian Haas to write the word processor and Tim Lundeen to write the spreadsheet. I wrote the database. Lundeen and I wrote the core code to integrate the modules. Later, Ben Halpern was hired to write the drawing and charting code. We wrote it in 68000 assembler and called it "MouseWorks."
In 1986, Bill Gates visited us in Santa Cruz and a deal was struck where Microsoft would publish our program as Microsoft Works for the Macintosh. Microsoft was working on Excel for the Mac, but it wasn't ready and they wanted something on the Mac.
Lundeen dropped out before it was published in a dispute with Williams. Haas, Halpern and myself finished it up. It was published in the fall of 1986. We did two more versions, then Microsoft bought us all out and took over in 1993.
AppleWorks for the Macintosh by Apple was called ClarisWorks and became a competitor, although not a significant one.
AppleWorks for the Apple II was written by Rupert Lissner of Scotts Valley, CA for Apple Computer. AppleWorks was released early in 1984 and was written in 6502 assembler. At that time, Steve Jobs was really anxious to have software on the new Macintosh computer that would make it appealing to business users. Lissner and Jobs discussed porting AppleWorks to the Macintosh.
Lissner teamed up with former IBM salesman and Apple exec Don Williams of Santa Cruz, CA to begin work on the Mac version. Don Williams was the creator of Desktop Plan and Graph'N'Calc for the IBM PC. Their company was named Productivity Software. Within months, AppleWorks became very successful so Lissner decided he didn't need to work on the Mac version. He dropped out without writing any code.
At that time I (Michael Watson) was hired as their first employee. Williams then hired Brian Haas to write the word processor and Tim Lundeen to write the spreadsheet. I wrote the database. Lundeen and I wrote the core code to integrate the modules. Later, Ben Halpern was hired to write the drawing and charting code. We wrote it in 68000 assembler and called it "MouseWorks."
In 1986, Bill Gates visited us in Santa Cruz and a deal was struck where Microsoft would publish our program as Microsoft Works for the Macintosh. Microsoft was working on Excel for the Mac, but it wasn't ready and they wanted something on the Mac.
Lundeen dropped out before it was published in a dispute with Williams. Haas, Halpern and myself finished it up. It was published in the fall of 1986. We did two more versions, then Microsoft bought us all out and took over in 1993.
AppleWorks for the Macintosh by Apple was called ClarisWorks and became a competitor, although not a significant one.
This is great background, thanks so much for sharing! Good history lesson here.
Thanks. I hope this helps future historians who are curious.
Silverlight was probably the most painful. I've known some companies that made big bets on that technology, and most of them were caught flat-footed when it was announced that it would be discontinued.