End of an era: Microsoft bids farewell to WordPad after nearly 30 years

[midian182]

What just happened? Microsoft has announced that after being part of Windows operating systems for almost three decades, WordPad is being killed off. The word processor is no longer under development and will be deprecated in a future Windows update.

WordPad is the basic word processor that was released 28 years ago with Windows 95 and has been integrated in virtually every version of the OS since then. But the program has seen very few updates in recent times; the last significant one was when the Ribbon UI was updated in Windows 7, and there hasn't been anything major since a Windows 8 redesign.

WordPad has been an optional Windows feature since the Windows 10 Insider Build 19551 that was release in February 2020, meaning it can be uninstalled via the Optional Feature control panel.

Microsoft confirmed that WordPad is being laid to rest via an update to its deprecated features for Windows client list. It confirms that there will be no more updates and the word processor will be removed in a future release of Windows. That could refer to Windows 12, which is expected to land next year.

Microsoft goes on to recommend using MS Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt. It was recently announced that Notepad will be getting autosave and automatic tab restoral – Microsoft added the browser-style tabs feature, also found in File Explorer, to the Windows 11 version of Notepad.

There's unlikely to be as much outcry over the death of WordPad as there was when Microsoft tried to do the same thing with Paint. The company said in 2017 that it was removing the program from Windows and making it a standalone app in the Microsoft Store, hoping that Paint 3D would take its place. But the firm went back on its decision: Paint got its first big overhaul in a decade in June, while Paint 3D has been deprecated.

Another notable name on the list of deprecated Windows features is Cortana. The AI voice-based assistant reached its end of support last month, making way for new AI tools such as Windows Copilot

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https://www.techspot.com/news/100011-end-era-microsoft-bids-farewell-wordpad-after-nearly.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Seems to me they would have been smarter to dump notepad and keep wordpad .....

 

[toooooot]

It is obvious, for those who need to tipe few sentences and make a simple doc, word pad is more than enough.
MS is like: why are they getting away without paying for our pathetic 365 which is advertised almost everywhere in windows and MS site itself.
If they have any dignity left, will at least make it free so that people can still download it from places like techspot

 

[Srksi]

Microsoft goes on to recommend using MS Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt
Yes, why giving something for free when you can charge subscription

 

[Lounds]

I remember having a family computer in 2005 that came with Microsoft works installed which was their budget version of office. I later leant that none of my files were compatible at school but I guess I could have save as an rtf or txt to get round this but didn't understand file formats enough at the time.

 

[Cycloid Torus]

Hail LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online and NeoOffice.

 

[VitalyT]

Another dumb PR from Microsoft. I thought WordPad died some 10 years ago. You want an end-of-era type of news - call me when Windows dies off, or better yet - Microsoft itself, I will raise a glass then.

 

[Tinker Yz]

A piano doesn't sound better if one removes the strings, all computers hail from the word processor, which we pay for like a typewriter, at the counter.
AI has a poisonous touch wherever it goes. It is both the end of user intelligencet and shcool assignments, as well as the silent push of the blue pill some of our wealthiest want.
Satya is the wrong man, and has been for awhile, just like Cook, they have both been banking on the work of their predecessors with very little innovation. While A.I. might entrance some folks it is really about as complicated as a bedroom mirror.
Unfortunately, because Satya stumbled so badly with the switch to apps, then his switch to the cloud. Apps is a term in itself a misnomer created by the Apple company in the early days, Microsoft was forced to go capital minded in order to stay competititive. This means catering to a public that writes and reads less every day. Of course, it means application, as anyone familiar with windows understands to be the application of a program, meaning apps are just programs. New names for old things is not innovation.
They haven't figured out the windows eight start was the right way to go, and it's been back and forth now with the control panel, which is unique to Microsoft, and what Satya is chipping away at as he steers the company into Apple's preset module. I understand the tablet needs push button dynamics, but it doesn't have to either or.
There is no possible way, with all the unnecassary pips and squeaks added, that the very origin of computers, the word processor, is being dropped so that folks can pay for a service slightly better. To be clear, they are taking the ability to easily and quickly write a document away from the user, both Wordpad and Write are the same program. These people are in the cloud, another amazonian and apple tethered arena, and in order to compensate the devotion should have been on Edge, rather than the operating system.

 

[RudyBob]

WordPad is superfluous. I used it on occasion.

 

[Aus spot]

Seems to me they would have been smarter to dump notepad and keep wordpad .....

With the automatic stripping of all formatting, notepad has been a godsend for many.

That annoying document with formatting you can’t change. Just copy it to notepad.

 

[SG736F6]

In the last 30 years I can probably count how many times I used Wordpad on two hands... Notepad on the other hand I've used for decades. Wordpad always felt like a half-baked word processor. I either need something for simple things like Notepad, or I need a real word processor and Wordpad just doesn't cut it.

 

[zanic]

With the automatic stripping of all formatting, notepad has been a godsend for many.

That annoying document with formatting you can’t change. Just copy it to notepad.

I do this so often and found this small app https://stevemiller.net/PureText/ that does it in one short cut key.

 

[rmcrys]

Another dumb PR from Microsoft. I thought WordPad died some 10 years ago. You want an end-of-era type of news - call me when Windows dies off, or better yet - Microsoft itself, I will raise a glass then.

Not all the people have the same needs and the Notepad + WordPad are excellent of-the-shelf solutions, the smartest thing to do would be to join both and optimize the app to be light. At work, when I need a quick unformatted text editor (sometimes when I copy text from internet or other word processor, it inserts code that I want to get rid of very fast, I paste on notepad and end of the story. In word I have to do too much clicking); WordPad is a simple free editing solution for those that rarely need a word processor and not to search for heavier options.

I use both MS office and libreoffice and apart of my job PC (MS office) I install everywhere libreoffice, trying to dich Microsoft and their subscriptions. Nevertheless, windows will stay for long, the user base as professional/ game platform is too huge and there is no (real) contender . The only one that could do some justice would be a generalized SteamOS.

 

[MaestroIT]

That annoying document with formatting you can’t change. Just copy it to notepad.

Depends on where you want to paste, in web pages just press CTRL+SHIFT+V in chromium based browsers and it pastes without formatting

 

[kinetix]

Anyway, one of the first things I install and configure on my PC (along with TC) is Notepad++ (and link it to TC).
I can't remember the last time I used WordPad for a document that wasn't pure text, maybe on a PC that didn't have Office or it didn't work

 

[ET3D]

Wordpad has been my go to app in the past when it came to writing. It's fast and simple and provides basic formatting. Most of the time I didn't find need for more.

I admit that these days Google Docs is readily available, but I do like the idea of having a basic offline app for writing formatted text.

I guess from the alternatives, SoftMaker's FreeOffice is the best replacement.

 

[etempest]

Wordpad has been my go to app in the past when it came to writing. It's fast and simple and provides basic formatting. Most of the time I didn't find need for more.

I admit that these days Google Docs is readily available, but I do like the idea of having a basic offline app for writing formatted text.

I guess from the alternatives, SoftMaker's FreeOffice is the best replacement.

In the short term, can't you grab the file(s) and copy them over to Windows 1X and still use it?

 

[ET3D]

In the short term, can't you grab the file(s) and copy them over to Windows 1X and still use it?

I'm not sure what you're suggesting. If you're suggesting that in a future version of Windows without Wordpad the solution to reading rtf files would be to use an earlier version of Windows that includes Wordpad, then that's a strange solution.

 

[Tyler Dur Den]

Seems to me they would have been smarter to dump notepad and keep wordpad .....

Not at all. Notepad is far more useful. I use it daily for cleansing formatting from text, saving bits of text and notes, and a variety of things that don't require formatting such as recipes. I haven't used Wordpad for 20 years.

 

[kinetix]

Wordpad has been my go to app in the past when it came to writing. It's fast and simple and provides basic formatting. Most of the time I didn't find need for more.

I admit that these days Google Docs is readily available, but I do like the idea of having a basic offline app for writing formatted text.

I guess from the alternatives, SoftMaker's FreeOffice is the best replacement.

Google Docs? I wouldn't use that for anything in my life.

 

[Tyler Dur Den]

Google Docs? I wouldn't use that for anything in my life.

Agreed. I have never understood why people are so drawn to the 'free' offerings from Google: search, email, applications. There is a price for these, and that price is your privacy. I was always suspicious of all of it.

 

[ET3D]

There is a price for these, and that price is your privacy.

I feel that this cost is insignificant and the benefits are high. If I write a story or create a spreadsheet of some expenses, I don't see a downside to Google seeing that data, and the ability to access the documents from anywhere and to share them easily with other people are pretty large benefits.

The main thing I'd worry about is the danger of losing access to the account and documents. The chance of this happening is small, but not negligible.