Free Version Of Microsoft Word
Microsoft is just giving away Word. Yup, they’ve gone crazy!
Or not.
Its Word 5.5 For DOS. According to Download Squad:
Turns out Microsoft released a Y2K patch for Word back in 1999, and rather than try to sell it, they just posted the whole program on the web for anyone to take. Six years on, the link is still live, though I doubt too many people download it. However, it does work, and can run in a DOS box under XP (or in DOSBox under OSX or Linux).
So, how does free Word 5.5 compare to today’s free word processors? I suspect it isn’t the best, but its probably decent for many people, and I’ll bet it runs real fast. Let me know if anyone installs it.
Oh, Microsoft: You aren’t making or losing any money off this. Leave the file alone. In fact, how about releasing every pre-1990 MS product for free?
Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS Available for Free
From Download Squad:
Microsoft Word 5.5 for DOS is still available, and Microsoft is giving it away. Turns out Microsoft released a Y2K patch for Word back in 1999, and rather than try to sell…
Trackback by MicrosoftBlog.com | November 25, 2005
Re-reading this old post, I realized: I would LOVE it if Microsoft would give away QuickBASIC 7.1/QuickBASIC Extended.
I mean, I’m still using it. It’s my alternative to Linux shell scripting. I mean, even Visual Studio is free now (sort of), so they don’t really lose anything from it - even if VS2005 has only been released for free to push the latest .NET version.
I’m still using QB7, and I’d love to see an official Microsoft.com download link for it appear! It’s not like you can’t download it from the web already anyway.
Comment by Tim | February 5, 2007