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Maybe you’re a fan of Windows WordPad, maybe you’re not. But it was a dependable, if bare bones, means of jotting down anything. Ever since Windows 95, it was always there. And now, as spotted by Xeno on 𝕏witter, Microsoft is deprecating WordPad, with plans to remove it entirely in a future release.
From the documentation:
WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.
WordPad, originally a replacement for Windows Write, has been part of the Windows suite for the past 28 years. While it wasn’t as feature rich as Word or Works Word Processor, it was fairly lightweight, which some users definitely preferred. It was also free, which is hard to turn down as a benefit.
While it did get an update in Windows 7 to be visually consistent with that version of Windows (it introduced the Windows ribbon at the top), that was its last significant update. Though it did get another visual update for Windows 8, which flattened the visual elements, its gone completely untouched since. That means it’s been over a decade since it got any attention whatsoever.
It’s been in an awkward position for quite some time, too. Word has been available for free online for a while. And, if you want a bare minimum text editor, well, that’s kind of what Notepad is. WordPad is somewhere between those two, and that makes it kind of difficult to justify.
While Microsoft has no hard date on when they’ll remove WordPad, it’s definitely not too long for this world. It’s certain that it won’t be a part of Windows 12, or whatever they decide to name the next major version of Windows.
Source: Windows Central
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