Farewell: Microsoft to remove WordPad

​The end of an era! After almost 30 years, Microsoft plans to remove WordPad from Windows.

On September 1, 2023, Microsoft announced its plans to remove WordPad software, as the software giant considered it a deprecated feature. WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows—most probably in Windows 12, which is set to feature AI-powered enhancements. Microsoft is expected to unveil Windows 12 in 2024.​

​Microsoft recommends its own Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and.rtf. It is also recommended to use its own Windows Notepad for plain text documents like .txt.

​The initial version of WordPad came with Windows 95. It is more sophisticated than Notepad, another text editor, thanks to its capability for rich text editing, although it lacks Microsoft Word's features. Unlike Notepad, WordPad supported formatting features like italics, bold text, and the underline option.

​WordPad is not the only classic Windows feature that is retiring. Microsoft said in June that it would no longer support Cortana as a standalone app on Windows.