Microsoft is no longer updating WordPad and plans to remove the word processor from a future release of Windows.
The software giant will instead recommend Microsoft Word, its paid word processor that has always been far more feature rich than the basis WordPad app that has shipped as part of Windows since Windows 95.
“WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows,” reads a support note published by Microsoft on Friday.
News of the WordPad removal comes just a day after Microsoft revealed it’s upgrading Notepad with features like autosave and automatic restoral of tabs.
The word processor was updated with Windows 7’s Ribbon UI, but after a slight Windows 8 redesign it hasn’t had any major additions.
Microsoft will now remove WordPad entirely in a “future release of Windows,” which will most likely be the Windows 12 version we’re expecting to see in 2024 with plenty of AI-powered features.
The original article contains 213 words, the summary contains 158 words. Saved 26%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!