Microsoft is removing WordPad from Windows after nearly 30 years

Microsoft has revealed that WordPad would be deleted from future releases of Windows 11 after more than 30 years as a core Windows application. Starting with Windows 11, the text editing program—which made its debut in Windows 95—will not be installed automatically and will, after that, be replaced completely.

The Canary Channel received this update as part of Windows 11’s latest Insider Preview Build 26020. According to Microsoft, once WordPad is uninstalled, it cannot be reinstalled. Accordingly, the classic app is probably going away after this.

Windows has always marketed WordPad as a compromise between Notepad’s stripped-down simplicity and Word’s robust set of features. It was popular for small papers and notes because it let you format them simply with fonts, colors, and paragraph alignment. But it looks like Microsoft pushed Word for more durable papers and Notepad for simple text over the years, making WordPad less useful.

By suggesting Word for rich text formats and Notepad for plain text, the company hinted at this in their instructions. Since there were already good options, Microsoft probably didn’t see much point in keeping working on WordPad. Microsoft failed to update WordPad with a dark mode for Windows 11, so the signs may have been there all along. In the meantime, Notepad got a dark mode and will soon have more autosave options.

Why Is Microsoft Removing WordPad From Windows?

A support statement on Microsoft’s website announced that “WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” Aside from Windows Notepad for simple text files like.txt and Microsoft Word for rich text files like.doc and.rtf, Microsoft also offered their recommendation.

Reports indicate that Microsoft WordPad has remained unchanged after the introduction of the Ribbon user interface in Windows 7. There was also a small Windows 8 update of the WordPad, but it didn’t make a big difference to the word processor. The tech software behemoth has decided to promote Microsoft Word, its premium word processor, to its customers. When compared to WordPad, Microsoft Word has always had more features. The only real changes were the 2018 major update and the addition of tabs in Windows 11.

Now that WordPad has reached its final destination, the word processor application will no longer be included in future Windows releases by Microsoft. The update for Windows 12 that is coming out in 2024 is likely to include features that AI drives.

Conclusion

News reports say that The WordPad suffered from layout problems, making it less popular. It works best on tablets, PCs, and smartphones for taking notes, writing letters and stories, and taking notes. When you copy and paste content from an HTML page into WordPad, the text is automatically converted to Rich Text Format, which can cause formatting problems. The WordPad’s unsuitability for graphic-intensive work contributed to its decline in popularity.