Microsoft's product graveyard is calling for new victims.
Microsoft has tons of great products and services. Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft Office, and even Microsoft Edge are doing well these days. But not all products are given the love and care they need to succeed.
We all know about the dead products, Windows Phone, the Surface Duo, Zune, and more (RIP), but what about products that are more like ... the living dead?
As Microsoft's priorities shift to things like Microsoft Copilot AI and away from things like Windows Mixed Reality, more and more Microsoft products are beginning to slip through the cracks.
As someone who actively uses Microsoft products and services, I've found myself increasingly disappointed by a variety of them, many of which have simply stopped getting meaningful updates — and in some cases, stopped getting updates altogether.
Here are 5 Microsoft products and services that were innovative in their day, but have become stagnant, or worse — abandoned.
Swiftkey
Microsoft purchased SwiftKey in 2016 for $250 million to integrate the swipe-writing "Flow" style into its ecosystem. Fast forward to 2025, and SwiftKey has lost a lot of the prestige it once enjoyed.
For a time, SwiftKey was regarded as the best Android keyboard, but it didn't take long for Google and Samsung to catch up with their own initiatives. Having industry-leading swipe-writing keyboard capabilities made a lot of sense when Microsoft was still making phones and smaller tablets, but in 2025, it no longer seems to be any more than a passing interest for the cloud-hungry AI-powered giant.
SwiftKey is still getting updates, but they're usually ancillary, dare I say, pointless features like generative AI meme-creation tools and auto-writing features that I would guess literally nobody is using.
The core features of SwiftKey, you know, typing hasn't seen a meaningful update in a very long time. The customization features haven't changed in years, and you'd think that with Microsoft's AI toolkits, they would want to explore improving the accuracy of swipe-writing using language models somehow. It could've also found its way into Xbox somehow to improve social communicative tools on the console, too.
Alas, SwiftKey is now firmly behind competing solutions for predictive swipe-style text, and even further behind when it comes to customization and features. A shame.
Microsoft Launcher
Here's one that's particularly frustrating. I'm an active user of the Microsoft Launcher, which is essentially a skin for the default Android experience. Microsoft's launcher gained immediate popularity when it launched, owing to its simplicity, speed, and solid utility — particularly if you're a heavy Microsoft ecosystem user.
2025 is the Microsoft Launcher's 10th anniversary, but over the last few years, it has gotten gradually worse. Bugs and other issues have become increasingly prevalent, left unresolved and unfixed for years. My app library freezes up frequently, for example, requiring me to back out to the lock screen to fix it. The weather widget also randomly stopped being white and is now an off-white blue color, which is the most random bug ever.
The lack of new features and polish has also dogged the app, as new form factors like the Samsung Galaxy Flip and Fold have become increasingly prevalent, the Microsoft Launcher hasn't really been updated to accommodate them. It's hard to say if there is even a team working on the Microsoft Launcher anymore, given that it hasn't had a meaningful update besides token AI integrations since forever.
Movies & TV
Here's one I think many of you will be able to agree with, given that this is what actually inspired this article in the first place.
Microsoft Movies & TV (or Film & TV if you're British, for some reason), is the Microsoft Store's media purchasing platform. Apple has iTunes, Google has Google Play, and Microsoft has Movies & TV. One of those three has been practically abandoned for development, however.
Whether it's the relatively light support for 4K purchasing options, the lack of apps for mobile or TVs, or general bugs and stability — Microsoft Movies & TV is just poor, and hasn't had a meaningful update in a million years.
Last night, I was watching a movie I'd purchased a long time ago in 1080p. I was mildly irritated that there remains no option to purchase a 4K version. Whatever. But Movies & TV still has a bug where, if you pause the movie or rewind it, the resolution gets crushed until you back out of the video feed and resume it from the main app. This bug has been present for years, and I doubt there's anyone at Microsoft even vaguely interested in fixing it.
It still gets (most) of the latest shows and films, but Movies & TV probably only still exists because refunding everyone's purchases is a cost too high for Microsoft to bear, as it did when it killed off Microsoft Groove Music. Instead, Microsoft seems intent on pushing people away from the service by allowing it to be pretty terrible.
Xbox achievements
Although it's not an app per se, it is a bit annoying how underutilized and undeveloped one of Xbox's crowning innovations has become over the years.
To differentiate itself, Microsoft added gamification to the Xbox platform itself, where players could earn points for triggering certain conditions in games. It's a requirement for developers in the Xbox ecosystem to add achievements to their games, and it has become ubiquitous on platforms like Steam, PlayStation, and even inside games like World of Warcraft ever since.
As of 2025, Xbox's achievement system hasn't really seen any meaningful updates. In the past, you could even earn Xbox Avatar (RIP) rewards from achievements and in-game rewards occasionally, too. Since the addition of "rare" achievement rewards, which would grant users a special toast notification when landing achievements few other players had — the achievement system hasn't really had any new features added since. Knowing I could get Xbox achievements for Windows Phone games is what sold me on the platform back in the day, too.
Many Xbox users have been calling on Microsoft to add rewards for fully completing sets of achievements, similar to PlayStation's platinum trophy system. Microsoft does have its Rewards system, which gives players redeemable points for engaging with Xbox, but they're outside of the games themselves. Some indie publishers have been abusing the achievement system too, shipping shovelware games that reward 1000 gamerscore for practically doing nothing, just to fleece achievement hunters of their cash.
It would be nice to see Xbox achievements get some love in some way. It's wild to me that properties Microsoft owns, like Hearthstone, Candy Crush, and other mobile games, don't have Xbox achievements attached to them. I would've thought that to have been a no-brainer. It just doesn't seem like a priority anymore.
Microsoft Journal
Microsoft Journal was first launched as a Garage project in 2021 and is a unique journaling app for Windows. It prioritizes pen and digital inking and is excellent for writing down notes and important bits of information. The app utilizes pen gestures such as scribbling out words to remove them, and just makes using a pen to take notes on Windows so much more interesting. The app features a beautiful native Windows UI and is super fluid and easy to use.
I'd argue that if you're using Windows with a pen, it's a vital app that you must download and install to complete the experience. In fact, I think it's a better note-taking app than OneNote, which is Microsoft's premier note-taking experience and clearly the focus for the company.
Unfortunately, the app appears to have been abandoned. It hasn't received any new features or bug fixes since March 2023, and the last update it got was the ability to export journals as a PDF or to OneNote. With enough resources, Journal could be one of the best note-taking apps of any platform, but unfortunately, Microsoft isn't giving it the time and effort it deserves.
What Microsoft products do you think have dropped off?
We all know about things like that have been formally abandoned like the Surface Duo, but are there any other existing Microsoft products that have disappointed you lately? Hit the comments, let us know.
