Let’s take a quick look at some Windows programs that used to be everywhere.

1. Flash

Flash absolutely dominated the web while it was around.

Many will recognize Flash as the engine that powered their favorite browser games. Other than that, Flash was a powerful multipurpose animation software, offering artists and animators free and powerful tools that could then be integrated into other pieces of software.

Flash was deprecated in 2017 and officially saw its discontinuation in 2020. Since then, Adobe has offered a replacement in the form of Adobe Animate. We’ve gone through the features of Adobe Animate before, and while it’s a handy piece of software, it still hasn’t reached the prominence of Flash.

Flash was so popular that methods still live on to play the relevant flash files. We’ve also had a look at different ways to play Adobe Flash games.

2. MSN

MSN, or the Microsoft Network, was a mainstay for any desktop of the 90s. Once a dial-up service, then a fully-fledged internet provider, and then most prominently known as a software package containing one of the earliest messenger programs, MSN has had a long and storied history.

Now, it’s a simple web page. A program still exists, but it’s just a host for said web page.

Nowadays, the default software associated with Microsoft is much more diversified. Outlook, Skype, and Bing all offer services that MSN once tried to include in one package.

For better or worse, MSN is definitely a program that used to be everywhere, and now is hard to find.

3. Fraps

The iconic yellow frame rate numbers were once a common sight throughout gaming YouTube.

Once upon a time, Fraps was the most accessible desktop recording software available. It saw frequent use in recording games and other software for users to share online, and the availability of the free trial version meant that any up-and-starting Lets Player was sure to seek this program out.

Fraps very much still exists and serves as a great benchmarking tool. It even made it into our list of the best free benchmarking programs for Windows.

However, its prominence as a software recording tool has mostly fallen by the wayside. Native GPU recording options have largely taken their place. It’s very rare to see those bright yellow digits anymore.

4. LimeWire

LimeWire simplified the process of peer-to-peer file sharing and made it accessible to everyone.

Many would argue of the benefits, as LimeWire quickly became infamous for infecting the family computer with viruses.

Regardless of what the program was used for, the program fell off in popularity quite quickly after contemporary torrent programs became more widely available. While the program was never properly discontinued, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone using it after 2010.

As for LimeWire today? Well, it has seen a Crypto makeover, making a comeback as an NFT marketplace. A far cry from what it once represented, but potentially relevant again.

5. Hamachi

Hamachi is still very much around, leading the charge as a quick and easy self-hosted VPN solution.

It wasn’t always known for that, though. Previously, Hamachi was the go-to solution for gamers hoping to create game servers in the days of required port forwarding or independently hosted servers.

These days, Hamachi is a service that you must sign up for. Older versions of the programs had no account requirement, and were much more lightweight, with some forks even being completely portable.

Because of this, Hamachi was once widely used for many purposes.

Thankfully, as multiplayer games have evolved, self-hosting has become significantly easier and is usually handled by platform providers like Steam.

6. Nero Burning ROM/Disc Burning Software

Disc burning is still a relatively popular function of a computer. To say no one does it anymore would be inaccurate, but the general need to burn media to discs has seen a significant decrease in the age of streaming.

Music, videos, and other media are now usually accessed remotely, and local storage devices have become larger and more accessible.

Burning media to a disc isn’t a very desirable function to the average consumer, and this is reflected by many computer builds forgoing a disc drive entirely.

Nero Burning ROM, being available with a trial version, was once a fairly common sight. Now it’s a rare thing to see, with people using alternatives for the times they want to burn something to a CD.

7. CCleaner

CCleaner was undeniably a must-have tool. Its intention was to clean up temporary or junk files from your system, hopefully optimizing it and gaining a little performance. It also can deal with broken registry entries, and may still find a place in a power users’ software kit.

This is now a function that comes built into Windows. The Disk Cleanup tool already scans and suggests the removal of irrelevant junk files, with the added benefit of not touching the increasingly delicate registry files of Windows.

So while CCleaner used to find its way onto most installations of Windows for the purposes of troubleshooting, many users now get these same problems fixed with the inbuilt tools provided to them.

8. Daemon Tools

Daemon Tools was another program that reached popularity mostly due to its free version.

Daemon Tools allowed the user to mount and interface with virtual disk files. For power users back in the day, this was a crucial program, as Windows previously could not natively mount virtual disk files.

Like other programs on this list, Daemon Tools has fallen out of relevance mostly due to Windows offering its most desired function as a default feature.

Nowadays, it’s as easy as double-clicking an ISO file to mount it. Daemon Tools is now a tool only relevant for those looking to manage multiple virtual drives.

Older Programs: Not Quite Gone, Not Quite Forgotten

Programs indeed come and go, but because of the nature of the internet, they’re never really gone. You can still access and use many of these programs, and a great deal of this list still see active development in some way.

Each item from this list has fallen out of relevance in some way, but many still have their uses, if they’re not discontinued.