Farewell, Wordpad! Microsoft announces retirement for the editor in the upcoming Windows update

In a surprising move, Microsoft has bid adieu to Wordpad, the venerable native word editor that has been a staple of Windows for 28 years. Nope, we aren’t kidding John! The minimalistic yet feature-packed document editor has been discontinued with the latest Windows update, leaving users searching for alternatives.

The announcement came through a blog post on the Windows Insider platform, revealing that WordPad would no longer be installed after a clean OS install, and in subsequent updates, WordPad would be permanently removed.

“Starting with this build (Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26020), the WordPad and People apps will no longer be installed after doing a clean install of the OS. In a future flight, WordPad will be removed on an upgrade. WordPad will not be reinstallable”, said the Windows Insider blog in a post.

Microsoft is directing users to Microsoft Word for rich text documents and Windows Notepad for plain text files like .txt, but Notepad lacks as a substitute for the beloved Wordpad. One significant drawback is that Notepad doesn’t support rich text files, doc files, docx files, or any formats beyond basic txt files, limiting its versatility compared to WordPad. Overall, it isn’t a good alternative to the Wordpad.

The reason behind WordPad’s demise, according to Microsoft, is that it is now a deprecated Windows feature. With the implementation of build 26020, WordPad will be uninstallable and won’t be available for reinstalling – a departure from the usual Microsoft practice of allowing users to restore deprecated features.

This change affects both new installations and upgrades, with WordPad and the People app conspicuously absent from systems undergoing a clean OS install or an upgrade.

However, WordPad isn’t the sole casualty in this update. Microsoft’s recent blog lists several features and services labeled as ‘Deprecated’ for Windows clients. Alongside WordPad, Windows Mixed Reality, Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Edge, Legacy console mode, Windows speech recognition, Microsoft Defender Application Guard for Office, Steps Recorder (psr.exe), Cortana in Windows, Tips, and various other features will vanish from Windows PCs.

This news may be disheartening for users who rely heavily on WordPad in their daily routines. Microsoft suggests exploring third-party word editors or utilizing the free Office Online service as viable alternatives. As Windows evolves, users must adapt to these changes, and the retirement of WordPad marks the end of an era for this longtime companion in document creation.