Encarta Encyclopedia Free Software -

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

: It originally debuted at $395 , though this price quickly dropped to $99 as it became frequently bundled with new multimedia PCs. Encarta Encyclopedia Free Software

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. : An abridged online version offering around 16,000

At its 2008 peak, contained over 62,000 articles and a massive library of multimedia assets. After being rejected by Encyclopædia Britannica , Microsoft

: 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.

: Included thousands of photos, illustrations, music clips, videos, and interactive animations.