Cardfile

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Screenshot of the Windows 3.1 version of Cardfile

Cardfile was a personal information manager distributed with Microsoft Windows starting from the original version 1.01 until Windows NT 4.0 Server. Cardfile also appeared in Windows 98 and Windows Millennium Edition, but had to be installed manually from the installation CD-ROM. Beginning with Windows 3.1, Cardfile supported Object Linking and Embedding. The version supplied with Windows NT versions was a 32-bit application with unicode support. Both later versions could read .CRD files created by previous versions.

The MGC signature of .CRD files are the initials of the author, Mark Cliggett.

Cardfile's source code was delivered with the Windows SDK. The availability of the source code was apparently not known to everybody, because one can find a 1989 reverse engineering of the (very simple) file format floating on the Internet.

Localized versions of Windows may have contained Cardfile under other names, for example repert.exe (Répertoire) for the French language Windows.

Schedule+, which appeared with Windows 95, and Outlook Express, which appeared with Windows 98, have built-in contact managers which can replace Cardfile. Schedule+ had the ability to import Cardfile .CRD files through its Import/Export Add-on pack.

[edit] Version Information

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

16-bit (3.0) - File size: 53,952 bytes; Date stamp: 10-31-90; Confirmed in: Windows 3.0a
16-bit w/ OLE - File size: 93,184 bytes; Date stamp: 12-31-93; Confirmed in: Windows 98 SE
32-bit - File size: 101,008 bytes; Date stamp: 05-25-95; Confirmed in: Windows NT 3.51 (diskette)