Microsoft’s WordPad has held a trusted position in Windows users’ repertoire for three decades now, but the rich text editor is finally being sunset. Debuting in Windows 95, WordPad has allowed users to have access to a more sophisticated text editor than NotePad, granted, with less bells and whistles than Microsoft Word, but also without the required paid subscription.
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In a post dated last Friday, Microsoft has filed WordPad under “Deprecated features for Windows client.” The company states that the program will no longer be updated, and will be removed in future versions of Windows. As an alternative, the post recommends that users use Word for ” rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.” Of course, WordPad was a free option for those who wished to not drop any money on Microsoft Word. In the meantime, plenty of free alternatives exist online, but plenty of people are left wondering why Microsoft would choose for future versions of Windows to ship without a native word processor.
