Microsoft Home

Developer(s)	Microsoft
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Available in	English
Type	Various
License	Proprietary

Microsoft Home is a discontinued line of software applications and personal hardware products published byMicrosoft. The Microsoft Home brand was first announced by Bill Gates in a presentation on October 4, 1993.^[1] These applications were designed to bring multimedia toMicrosoft Windows andMacintosh personal computers. With more than 60 products available under the Microsoft Home brand by 1994, the company's push into the consumer market took off.Microsoft Plus!, an add-on enhancement package for Windows, continued until theWindows XP era. The range of home software catered for many different consumer interests from gaming withMicrosoft Arcade andEntertainment Packs to reference titles such asMicrosoft Encarta,Bookshelf andCinemania. Shortly after the release of MicrosoftWindows 95, the company began to reduce the price of Microsoft Home products and by the rise of theWorld Wide Web by 1998, Microsoft began to phase out the line of software.

Microsoft Home produced software for all different home uses and environments.^[1] The products are divided into five categories: Reference & Exploration, Entertainment, Kids, Home Productivity and Sounds, and Sights & Gear. The category in which the product was divided is identifiable by the packaging. Generally, Reference & Exploration products have a purple base color, Entertainment has a black base color, Kids has a yellow base color, Home Productivity has a green color and Sounds, Sights & Gear products have a grey or red base color.^{[citation needed]} Note that many applications were developed in conjunction with other reputable software and reference companies.^{[weasel words]} For example, Microsoft Musical Instruments was developed withDorling Kindersley.^[2]

Microsoft Home Reference products brought information toMultimedia Personal Computers - it was an effective way of presenting and exploring information before theWorld Wide Web became mainstream. These products were embellished withhyperlink relatively new at this time. Most of these products were released onCD-ROM, giving the software the ability to display high-resolution graphics and animations, and play high-quality waveforms andMIDI files. These products proved that personal computers would revolutionize the way that we find and explore information.

In the early 1990s, games on personal computers generally ran on the now obsoleteMS-DOS operating system. However, with the introduction of MicrosoftWindows 3.1x in 1992, Microsoft Home published several entertainment applications that implemented the new technologies of Microsoft Windows such asDirectX. Furthermore, these applications encouraged thecomputer gamers of the time to migrate from MS-DOS to Microsoft Windows. This transition permitted better use of computer graphics, revolutionizedgame programming and resulted in a more realistic gaming experience, compared to DOS gaming.^[3] For example, MicrosoftWindows Entertainment Pack Games have remained a classic for computer gamers, ever since their development in the early 1990s.^[4]

The Microsoft Kids division producededucational software aimed at children in 1993. Their products feature a purple-skinned character named McZee who wears wacky attire and leads children through the fictional town of Imaginopolis, where each building or room is a unique interface to a different part of the software. He is accompanied by a different partner in each software title.

Tying in with the TV series, MicrosoftScholastic's The Magic School Bus was a highly successful series that continued to be sold after Microsoft Home's kids range of software turned into a subsidiary calledMicrosoft Kids.

• Microsoft Publisher is still available even today as a part ofMicrosoft Office, although it is in maintenance phase, there have been no feature enhancements for years after Publisher 2010.
• Microsoft Flight Simulator development was discontinued with the closure ofACES Game Studio. A replacement,Microsoft Flight, was later developed but subsequently also discontinued. However,the last version of the original software was later made available viaSteam. In 2020,a brand-new Flight Simulator version was released with updatedDirectX graphics technology.
• Microsoft Picture It! eventually becameMicrosoft Digital Image and was discontinued after the release ofWindows Vista.Windows Photo Gallery, itself later discontinued, and its successorPhotos include similar features.

• Microsoft AutoMap later becameMicrosoft MapPoint andMicrosoft Streets & Trips. This can be confirmed by "AutoMap"registry entries installed by these products. Both were discontinued in 2014.
• Microsoft Works was replaced byOffice Starter 2010 which is available to OEMs for installation on new PCs only and does not include a replacement for the Works Database program. Office Starter 2010 was discontinued beforeOffice 2013, which does not offer a similar edition, was released.
• Microsoft Encarta andMicrosoft Money were discontinued in 2009, and no replacement products have been announced or released.

• Discontinued Microsoft software
• Microsoft franchises

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from April 2019
• All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases
• Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from April 2019