Amid the enless rush to upgrade Windows and MSO, I'm curious about the oldest piece of productivity or utility software people still use on their computers, not including games.

I use Word 95 on a couple of computers. That's probably not the oldest thing I use, but it's what comes to mind.

Edited March 10, 20215 yr by i430VX

I use Office 2003, because I hate newest Office's menu. I also use Windows XP. And my Screen reader have an old version of the Eloquence sintesizer, released around 1995.

I use a gigabit network switch from 2007. As well as that, a breaker box from 1969.

Software wise fully, the oldest game I play is probably The Sims 3, and Portal. Non-gaming wise, I never update my software, so the oldest software that I use a lot is Windows Explorer. 6.1.7601

@Sergiaws. I'm with you on Office. The ribbon on the newest versions is a real productivity killer. I still use Outlook and Word 2003, with the MS upgrade that allows Word to create and read the .docx format. But I bit the bullet and upgraded to Excel and Power Point 2010 because MS added some useful features that I needed. Otherwise, my oldest frequently used software is the backup app Copy to Synchronizer v.3.3 and IObit Uninstaller v.2.4, both of which came out about 15 years ago and still work even on Windows 10.

For me it is WSOY (finnish book publisher) finnish to english dictionary software for dos/windows 3 from 1991. It is even today very decent to translate stuff, got small footprint and runs on almost every system

Edited March 11, 20215 yr by Mr.Scienceman2000

10 hours ago, Tonny52 said:

I use a gigabit network switch from 2007.

My server and switch is from same year. Both hp branded. Old enterprise equipments lasts long

Now that you mentioned it, I realized that I don't use any old software. My oldest installed program is fraps from 2013.

Only my games are older than that

I'm sure I have a ton of older programs on my current systems but a lot of them end up being a use once and forget it type thing. One that is a daily use for me is Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004.

Word 97. Here we have it open a 30 MB, 90 page long document on a Windows 98 computer from 2000. Word 97 has many tripwires, but once these are mastered, it can be used as a layouting program for big projects. Downsizing images (to 256 colours for example) is a key to use it on slow computers. Even after 22 years of using Word 97, I still improve and find out new things. Oh, by the way, Word 97 can be installed on Windows 10, too!