To be fair, Java and .NET fared well since then - both still exist and it it is very convenient to e.g. drop an old JAR in a project and just use it without issues.
Silverlight was unfortunate but overall good for the web. You must realize that even Flash, the vastly larger competitor, also died and gave way to much better browser native APIs.
I don’t know about Windows workflow but it’s important to keep in mind the difference between abandoned products vs the changing software trends landscape.
https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/Documentation/c...
> We generally don't accept change proposals that are in bucket #1.
...
> Bucket 1: Public Contract Clear violation of public contract.
> Examples:
> - Renaming or removing of a public type, member, or parameter
> - Changing the value of a public constant or enum member
> - Sealing a type that wasn't sealed
> - Making a virtual member abstract
> - Adding an interface to the set of base types of an interface
> - Removing a type or interface from the set of base types
> - Changing the return type of a member
> - ...or any other incompatible change to the shape of an API