Encarta Encyclopedia Free Software May 2026

Although mainly sold on CD-ROM and DVD, Microsoft experimented with free access models:

Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Encarta in March 2009, citing shifts in how people consume information. Microsoft Encarta Retrospective

: An abridged online version offering around 16,000 articles for free to students and teachers. Encarta Encyclopedia Free Software

: Over time, Microsoft bolstered its content by purchasing and incorporating Collier’s Encyclopedia and the New Merit Scholar’s Encyclopedia . Key Features and Content

: Starting in 2000, a subset of the full encyclopedia was available for free online, supported by advertisements. Although mainly sold on CD-ROM and DVD, Microsoft

Encarta was born from Microsoft's internal project in the late 1980s. After being rejected by Encyclopædia Britannica , Microsoft licensed text from Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia for its initial 1993 release.

At its 2008 peak, contained over 62,000 articles and a massive library of multimedia assets. Key Features and Content : Starting in 2000,

: Famous for the MindMaze trivia game, where players explored a medieval castle by answering encyclopedia-based questions.