Microsoft Graveyard is the virtual graveyard for all products killed by Microsoft; a free and open source collection of dead Microsoft products built by a passionate and nostalgic community. Our objective as a community is to provide factual, historic information for the products listed here. If something is missing, inaccurate, or you have a suggestion, visit and contribute to the project on GitHub.
Victor Frye
Heavily inspired by Killed by Google, but definitely incomplete for now, especially the further back in time you go.
The summary implied this was some kind of repository of Microsoft programs and their source code; that’s not actually the case at all though. Turns out it is basically just some scripts for showing pictures of gravestones, with a paragraph of text for each, and the listing is far from complete anyway. How pointless. Could have been done as a simple document instead.
Anyone wanting to see the actual list of products can go here:
https://github.com/victorfrye/microsoftgraveyard/blob/main/src/Client/wwwroot/data/corpses.json
The list doesn’t have Windows CE/Embedded Compact which went EOL last year. That was a kill that had a big impact on the business sector since businesses with Windows CE apps were left without an upgrade path and were faced with having to rewrite their apps either for the NT-based Windows IoT or Android (most went with the second option, since embedded Android uses AOSP without GMS and hence is fully open-source, and after being burned by the proprietary Windows CE they decided to not get burned again by a proprietary OS).
Another major kill was the Windows Mobile-based Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5, replaced by the Windows Phone-based Windows Embedded Handheld 8 which is not compatible with Windows Mobile apps. Again, those businesses went to Android.
I was a little disappointed by what constituted a “killed” product.
Take Windows 10 as a an example entry, they haven’t killed windows, they have released new editions and no longer support old versions.
It’s the equivalent of listing Debian 1 – 12 because each version is now (or will be) unsupported.
Adurbe,
I haven’t paid much attention to the article, but you’re right this does feel incredibly disingenuous and silly. Virtually every product in existence uses version numbers and this doesn’t mean they are killed. If these products continue with a different arbitrary version number, then it’s clearly not killed. It would make more sense to talk about MS killing features/software within the operating system, like how MS killed the “edge” browser (even though they reused the name for a new browser), or killing local email client.
A microsoft graveyard is informative like google graveyard is, but hopefully the creator realizes his error in counting version numbers as kills as he’s done here. By his logic, both chrome and firefox has been killed hundreds of times, it’s neither credible nor insightful.
The list seems to not know what it is, so it’s missed the target. Either it’s has to be everything to everyone, or it needs to be very specific, as it’s presented there are either too many things listed or nowhere near enough.
What is a product, something that makes it to market or something experimental?
What is killed, the end of the road or a new version?
When is something deliberately killed versus suffering a natural death?
Thanks for this-https://github.com/victorfrye/microsoftgraveyard/blob/minitab/src/Client/wwwroot/data/corpses.json @franksands Your insight on this topic is truly enlightening. It’s evident that you’ve put a lot of thought into your perspective, and your positive approach is both refreshing and inspiring.