What are some old programs you use?

[Gizmo]

I've seen quite a bit of discussion in retro-computing / web revival spaces about older hardware, but not as much about the older software people run on those PCs. I figured I'd ask what old, unsupported software (both older versions of still-existing products like Office and programs that don't have any continuations) people here still use. Personally, I'm a big fan of Microsoft Money Sunset Deluxe, it's a bit of a hassle having to manually enter / reconcile all my transactions, but I love how straightforward everything is, and having to manually enter every transaction into the register forces me to face how much I'm spending on frivolous items, and helps me think twice before impulse buying.

[Memory]

dunno if these count, but they've been around for a while and not much (if anything)'s changed, mostly just security patches and the occasional bug fix.

Audacious is one of them - it's fairly old by this point, it even has visualisers, it runs perfectly fine on lower res 4:3 displays, it's perfect for older machines with Alpine or Artix or even MX if you strip it down, etc. and it's perfect for all i wanna do - just play MP3, OGG, and FLAC files that i download lol

VLC, Pale Moon, Audacity, Akregator, KolourPaint, Psi, Thunar file manager, etc and even the DE being XFCE could also fit into this lmao

they're still perfectly fully supported, but unlike Windows or MacOS and things, these remain lightweight as heck and they look not much different at all since when they were first out lmao

i think, if i remember correctly, many of these programs were out since the 2000s? some possibly since the 90s and some the 2010s, but the attached image is of Audacious lol
it so happens to be an old UTAU song from then too!

edit: also Touhou Mountain of Faith (2007), UTAU (2008), Minecraft Java Edition 1.5.2 (modded) (~2013), etc are pretty old too. not MS-DOS old no way, but definitely not new.

[candycanearter07]

There's this strange "calendar" app I use on linux thats just called remind. It apparently hasn't been updated since 2006, and the syntax is incredibly strange (yes, SYNTAX. this is a calendar app completely defined through text files. which is why i love it). You can tell how old it is because all the manual page examples use dates in the 1990s.

Also, I guess slrn? It's a lot "newer", but it hasn't had a new release in almost 10 years (2016).

edit: ALSO SLRN HAS THE MOST CONFUSING SCRIPTING LANGUAGE because it doesnt use anything normal, it has its OWN language that the ONLY documentation is the MANUAL PAGE, and HALF THE STUFF ISNT EXPLAINED and it was SO HARD to write a plugin for it

[xwindows]

Actually, nearly every software I'm currently using is quite old (decade-old actually), so I'll mention just some of those here, especially ones which I have explicit reasons to say about why I stay on that version...

• Debian GNU/Linux 7.0: the last version of Debian before SystemD infection.
• MATE Desktop 1.8: the first MATE Desktop version available in Debian, and a version that still uses tried-and-true GTK 2.x widget toolkit. (I hate GTK3 with passion)
• Firefox 2.0: I'm currently using this as HTML 4.01 + CSS 2.0 test bench when writing my website, and also because it's the last Firefox version that worked on Windows 9x, and is being a version that still has Gopher protocol support.
• RSSOwl 2.2.1: this is actually its "latest" version, which I have been using for a decade now.
• Inkscape 0.48: I have been bitten by regressions in newer Inkscape 0.9x, so I now stay with this version permanently.
• Perl 5.8: latest version of Perl that I could find DOS binary of; so when I write Perl program, I try to make it also work with this Perl version.

And here are some older-than-the-days software I had used in the past:

• Microsoft Office 2002; the last version working on Windows 9x.
• Microsoft Office 2003; the last version before Microsoft destroyed it with ribbon GUI and incompatible document formats in 2007.
• Microsoft Paint 5.1; last version before Microsoft destroyed it with ribbon GUI in Windows Vista.
• Microsoft Windows Me: the Windows version I stayed with the longest.
• Microsoft Windows XP SP3: the last Windows version I actually liked.
• Microsoft Windows 7: the last Windows version I would tolerate.
• Internet Explorer 8.0: the last one that worked on Windows XP, with decent standard compliance (at the time), also my test bench for HTML 4.01 + CSS 2.1 compatibility
• Java Development Kit 5.0 (i.e Java 1.5): last version that worked on Windows 9x and last Java API version which there was GNU Classpath as an alternate libre implementation; so when I write Java program, I target this Java version whenever possible.

[lime360]

i use macromedia flash 8 and sometimes dreamweaver 8

[Bakartridge]

The main examples that come to mind would be Winamp (version 5.57 specifically), been using it since 2019 as my main music player on PC, and this tool I use to convert my videos to be played on my PSP called (appropriately) PSPVideoTools, I know people use stuff like Handbrake to convert their vids but VideoTools works the best for me, it's pretty streamlined and it generates a thumbnail file too, so been using it to mass convert videos.

[Nova]

I found out that MSN Messenger/WLM is still being upkept by dedicated enthusiasts, and it requires a patched client to have it running (on Windows 11 you do have to take a few extra steps JUST to get it working).

The one I'm using is through CrossTalk, I did use Escargot previously but there were some things that happened that resulted in the Discord server shutting down and most of their projects (aside from Escargot AFAIK) basically discontinuing.

[grubbyfox]

I found out that MSN Messenger/WLM is still being upkept by dedicated enthusiasts, and it requires a patched client to have it running (on Windows 11 you do have to take a few extra steps JUST to get it working).

The one I'm using is through CrossTalk, I did use Escargot previously but there were some things that happened that resulted in the Discord server shutting down and most of their projects (aside from Escargot AFAIK) basically discontinuing.

did you have to make a new account for crosstalk? (so no longer using escargot login)? i tried looking at crosstalk but wasnt sure how it worked or if it would look like the real msn deal like escargot.

[Tuffy!]

I sometimes use Jasc PaintShop Pro 9 on my old non internet PC because it has out of the box, hands down, the best text fx and vector/gradient/texture tools. The picture tube is also very nice.

Besides that I use some old OS to have fun. To do retro stuff    Sometimes I make use of an old adobe package I once bought for an astonishing amount of money (just to let adobe shutdown the activation server some years after)  Nooooo there is no middle finger smiley here 


 
UNITED WE
   STAND

[Nova]

did you have to make a new account for crosstalk? (so no longer using escargot login)? i tried looking at crosstalk but wasnt sure how it worked or if it would look like the real msn deal like escargot.

Yeah I had to make a new account for CrossTalk. Thankfully tho you can use emails that AREN'T hotmail/outlook/live.com addresses, at least for the versions past MSN Messenger 1 and 2.

[Ducky]

I found out that MSN Messenger/WLM is still being upkept by dedicated enthusiasts, and it requires a patched client to have it running (on Windows 11 you do have to take a few extra steps JUST to get it working).

The one I'm using is through CrossTalk, I did use Escargot previously but there were some things that happened that resulted in the Discord server shutting down and most of their projects (aside from Escargot AFAIK) basically discontinuing.

I didn't realize Escargot/NINA fell apart until stumbling across this thread  I dug a bit to find the details. Quite a predicament. I guess I'll look into CrossTalk now!

To answer the OPs thread question: I still have iTunes (to put songs in an iPod Touch I bought), PAINT.NET, VLC, Audacity, and sometimes I use old Windows Movie Maker via a Windows XP Virtual Machine.

[grubbyfox]

I didn't realize Escargot/NINA fell apart until stumbling across this thread  I dug a bit to find the details. Quite a predicament. I guess I'll look into CrossTalk now!

To answer the OPs thread question: I still have iTunes (to put songs in an iPod Touch I bought), PAINT.NET, VLC, Audacity, and sometimes I use old Windows Movie Maker via a Windows XP Virtual Machine.

escargot still works and all, and i think they would start making it fully open source too. there was just some drama in the discord apparently, and then they got spooked by a claim that yahoo would sue them for AIM, so they ditched it all I think. But afaik, their AIM still works. They just sort of scrapped most projects in the heat of it all. They said since most people only use escargot, they'd focus on that instead.

[Nael]

Sadly none   

I don't go out of my way to update or replace perfectly functional software but my hand has been forced several times specially with art programs. I loved open canvas but it stopped working when I upgraded to a wide monitor, my version of photoshop would not scale the interface when I changed to a even wider screen and more recently SAI did not like my newest tablet. I can see myself still using old Office versions if I haven't migrated to google docs and sheets

Oh, oh, I use Notepad++ and FileZilla too, do they count?

[Tuffy!]

I can see myself still using old Office versions if I haven't migrated to google docs and sheets

Oh, oh, I use Notepad++ and FileZilla too, do they count?

Have you tried using OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead? I would consider filezilla and notepad ++ as old software myself. They were created a long time ago (more than 20 years) but still are being maintained and updated until today. Great software 

[Ducky]

escargot still works and all, and i think they would start making it fully open source too. there was just some drama in the discord apparently, and then they got spooked by a claim that yahoo would sue them for AIM, so they ditched it all I think. But afaik, their AIM still works. They just sort of scrapped most projects in the heat of it all. They said since most people only use escargot, they'd focus on that instead.

Ahh! I see i see. For some reason I thought the outcome was much worse. I've since downloaded CrossTalk and enjoy it, so at least I have a couple options to use now