Microsoft announced that the company will no longer update WordPad and the future Windows releases will not be equipped with the word processor.
History of WordPad in Windows
The WordPad app was launched along with Windows 95. Since then, the word processor has been bundled as part of the Windows releases. As time goes by, Microsoft must have noticed the decrease in user demand and overall usage of the app due to the surge of other similar apps such as Microsoft Word.
"WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows," Microsoft noted in their support note post. To compensate, the company is recommending to use the Microsoft Word app for rich text documents such as .doc and .rtf. Likewise, Notepad is still available for .txt documents.
WordPad has been getting less improvements after it was slightly redesigned for Windows 8. For existing Windows, users can still use WordPad freely, however, those who will use the upcoming Windows releases will no longer be able to use the app.
Microsoft Improves Apps for Upcoming Release
WordPad is not the only Windows feature that will be removed. For months, Microsoft is routinely removing features and apps that are no longer serving its purpose for the company.
On the other hand, Microsoft has been testing a couple of updates for its apps. Recently, the company was spotted trying out an autosave feature for Notepad. According to Microsoft there will be interrupting dialogue as Notepad will just close and automatically save your progress.
In addition, Windows' Snipping Tool is also getting an update with a better screen recording interface which could help in screen recording your screen without having to download other apps. Overall, Microsoft has been actively improving by introducing some long-awaited features.
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