The WordPad text editor became part of Windows almost 30 years ago, but now its time has come to an end. The message about the upcoming deletion was noticed RIP Microsoft WordPad. You Will Be Missed in the description of the Windows 11 test build number 26020 for participants of the Insider Preview pre-evaluation program.
The WordPad service will cease to be the default tool and disappear completely from the system. At the same time, it can be installed manually, if necessary. Microsoft first mentioned this in September.
The company recommends switching to Word for documents with formatted text, and using a classic Notepad for simple text files.
The discontinuation of WordPad support could have been noticed much earlier. For example, this editor has become one of the few Windows applications that have not received support for the dark interface theme in recent updates.
WordPad, the successor to Microsoft Write, was added to the system with the release of Windows 95. This service was positioned as a text editor with some MS Word functions or as a more advanced version of Notepad. Having become the golden mean between them, he never caught on.