RIP WordPad, you will be sorely missed by everyone.
Windows users will be losing an old school yet much-loved app on PC. It’s time to say goodbye to WordPad, the free alternative word processing app included in Windows. The tech giant has announced the end of this legendary app silently and wants users to move on and migrate to MS Word or Notepad for editing documents.
The quiet announcement was found in the Deprecated Features for Windows client, which hinted the end of the road for WordPad.
So, what happens now? You likely still have access to WordPad as of this writing. But don’t expect any more updates for this app and assume it will stay in its current build. Upcoming Windows patches will eventually remove WordPad from the system. That means you must pick your next document processor, either the paid one from Microsoft or free open-source software available online.
The impact of this decision is not precisely known. Over the years, multiple similar apps have been available even for free users, giving them more choices than sticking with MS Office. The most popular free office alternative is LibreOffice, but you can also go for FreeOffice, WPS Office, and more.
This isn’t the first Microsoft culled a Windows app. Do you recall that Internet Explorer was replaced by Microsoft Edge? The newer one is based on Chromium and can even use Chrome extensions.
WordPad was initially shipped with Windows 95 and it replaced Microsoft Write almost 30 years ago.
