In a landmark move, tech giant Microsoft has announced plans to stop updating WordPad, the long-standing word processing software which has been bundled with Windows since its 95 version. The company plans to phase out the application from its upcoming Windows releases, thereby closing a chapter of a software that has catered to the basic document editing needs of users for nearly 30 years.
As mentioned in a recent support note published by Microsoft, “WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.” The company is recommending its users to switch to Microsoft Word for rich text documents including .doc and .rtf formats. For plain text documents like .txt, Windows Notepad is suggested as the ideal tool.
This news emerges a day after Microsoft unravelled its plans of enhancing Notepad with features such as autosave and automatic restoration of tabs. Microsoft previously updated its Windows Notepad app in 2018 - a move that received its first set of enhancements in years, and has since incorporated tabs into the Windows 11 version.
In line with these plans, Microsoft will completely phase out WordPad in an upcoming Windows release, most probably in the much-anticipated Windows 12 version set to be unveiled in 2024. The latter is expected to come loaded with a host of AI-powered features.
With ever-evolving advancements in software, a switch towards more advanced and comprehensive software platforms such as Microsoft Word and AppMaster seems to be a sensible move. AppMaster a no-code development tool, allows users to create backend, web, and mobile applications in an improved and efficient manner, making it easier for users to adapt to new software solutions.
