With many file formats and software popular in 1993 now obsolete and unreadable, company compliance and information governance teams are warned against losing critical digital information forever

As 90s hit television series The X-Files returns to our screens next month after a 13 year hiatus, digital preservation specialist Preservica has launched an awareness campaign to highlight the danger of file format and software obsolescence, and an impending ‘Digital Dark Age’ – warned against by Google’s Vint Cerf last year.

In conjunction with the new series of the popular US TV show, fans of the original series at Preservica have been pointing out the many changes in software that have occurred since the first episodes of The X-Files aired more than twenty years ago, in 1993.

Many popular file formats and software applications popular in 1993 have already disappeared or become obsolete. With technology refresh rates and application de-commissioning programmes beginning to accelerate, critical long-term information and files are now more at risk than ever.