WordPad, a Windows wealthy enhancing app that has been a mainstay of the platform since Windows 95, is on its manner out. Microsoft has marked it for deprecation, a dying knell that alerts that it is going to be eliminated in a future model.

BleepingComputer first noted the change, was made official in Microsoft’s list of deprecated Windows features, in September 2023.

And now the axe has began to fall. One of the adjustments being made within the latest Canary Channel build of Windows 11 is the elimination of WordPad from new Windows 11 builds — carry out a clear set up and WordPad will not be included. While it’s unclear what number of customers really pined for (and used) WordPad and its RTF file format, it does rob Windows 11 of a local wealthy textual content editor. Free options embody LibreOffice, the open-source different which remains to be going sturdy.

“WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows,” Microsoft mentioned. “We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.”

According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Wordpad was first launched in Windows 95, changing Microsoft Write. It’s not laborious see why Wordpad was picked to go to the chopping block, nonetheless: whereas Microsoft has launched new options for Notepad, Wordpad has been largely ignored. The notion of a “rich text editor” may be outdated, since there are textual content editors like Notepad or Notepad++, and phrase processors like Microsoft Word, and, properly, not a lot want for one thing in between.

In any occasion, Microsoft hasn’t mentioned when WordPad will lastly be eradicated, as soon as and for all. Will customers rally round it, like they did for Microsoft Paint? We’d doubt it. Sorry, WordPad, your time has come.

This story was up to date on January 29, 2024 with further particulars.