After 28 years of service, Microsoft is killing WordPad

Microsoft logo
(Image credit: David Becker (Getty Images))

Fresh from plunging a dagger into Cortana's digital heart, Microsoft is sharpening another knife while staring at a photograph of a victim with the eyes cut out and a bunch of darts holding it to the wall. That victim is WordPad, the blameless text editor sitting between Notepad and Word—neither a fully lightweight feature-free box for writing a shopping list in, nor an entire word processor ecosystem.

For that sin WordPad has been sentenced first to deprecation and then deletion. In a note called Deprecated features for Windows client, Microsoft has announced, "WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows. We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt."

Presumably everyone is actually just using Google Docs instead these days. I imagine the only reason Word is safe is because so many offices run on inertia and the thought of not using the same word processor they've always used would send management into instant cardiac arrest.

WordPad's been around since Windows 95, when it took over from Microsoft Write. Though it doesn't have spellcheck or a thesaurus, and there's no support for footnotes or separating pages, if for some reason you were given an .rtf file to open WordPad was the go-to. I can't say I'll miss it, but at least getting rid of it will free up—let me open control panel for a second—er, 6.25 MB of space.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

Read more
EA announces the guillotine will finally fall on Origin this April thanks to Microsoft's abandonment of 32-bit Windows and, if you don't like it, 'use a newer computer'
Astrohaus Freewrite Wordrunner keyboard front and back shot
The Freewrite Wordrunner with a built-in word counter might be the keyboard to look out for if you want to improve your writing process
Retro 1990s style beige desktop PC computer and monitor screen and keyboard. 3D illustration.
Microsoft nixes details of its Windows 11 TPM 2.0 security bypass though there are still other ways of getting the latest OS on 'unsupported' hardware
Windows 11's new emoji button in the taskbar.
You might mock Microsoft's new emoji button in Windows 11 but as someone that's explained how to quickly access emojis and special characters too many times, I get it
Windows 10 operating system logo is displayed on a laptop screen for illustration photo. Gliwice, Poland on January 23, 2022.
Valve's monthly survey reveals that almost 45% of Steam users on PC are still using Windows 10 even with the sword of Damocles hanging over them
Windows 11 Task Manager showing 11 GB RAM use with a sad face drawn on top
A debloating wizard has managed to get Windows 11 running on just 184 MB of RAM, and it looks like it can actually run apps
Latest in Windows
Microsoft's Task Manager in Windows 11
After years of complaints about Windows Task Manager displaying CPU utilization incorrectly, a fix is finally on its way
Microsoft Windows 11
The latest Windows 11 dev build gives you the ability to snap together commonly paired apps for access in a single click, and I'm already sold
Windows 11's new emoji button in the taskbar.
You might mock Microsoft's new emoji button in Windows 11 but as someone that's explained how to quickly access emojis and special characters too many times, I get it
Windows 10 operating system logo is displayed on a laptop screen for illustration photo. Gliwice, Poland on January 23, 2022.
Valve's monthly survey reveals that almost 45% of Steam users on PC are still using Windows 10 even with the sword of Damocles hanging over them
Microsoft Windows 11
If you installed Windows 11 with certain security updates and a USB stick, you may not get any more security updates warns Microsoft
Retro 1990s style beige desktop PC computer and monitor screen and keyboard. 3D illustration.
Microsoft nixes details of its Windows 11 TPM 2.0 security bypass though there are still other ways of getting the latest OS on 'unsupported' hardware
Latest in News
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam
Possibility Space concept art.
Possibility Space owners sue NetEase for $900 million over allegations it spread 'false and defamatory rumors' of fraud at the studio that ultimately forced it to close