A day after it was announced that after 32 years, Microsoft Corp. would be killing rudimentary picture editing software/beloved Windows staple Microsoft Paint, the company wants to assure horrified users the program isn’t actually dead.
In a company blog posted late on July 24, general manager Megan Saunders added a postscript to the original announcement – which, as of this writing, remains a “trending topic” on Facebook – that Paint would no longer be included in the upcoming Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
Instead, Saunders wrote, Paint was being added to the Windows Store as a free app download, while the default image editing software for Windows 10 would now be Paint 3D, which includes rudimentary 3D modelling features in addition to supporting 2D imagery in a fashion similar to the original Paint.
“Today, we’ve seen an incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia around MS Paint,” Saunders wrote. “If there’s anything we learned, it’s that after 32 years, MS Paint has a lot of fans. It’s been amazing to see so much love for our trusty old app. Amidst today’s commentary around MS Paint we wanted to take this opportunity to set the record straight.”
Originally released in a 1-bit monochrome version that was included in the original Windows 1.0, Paint was classified as a “deprecated” – that is, an app that was “not in active development and might be removed in future releases” in Microsoft’s most recent summary of features scheduled to be added or removed from Windows 10.
It is likely that despite being added to the Windows Store as a free app, Microsoft no longer plans to update Paint and will instead focus on Paint 3D, which Saunders noted “will continue to get new feature updates.”
ITBusiness.ca would like to use this opportunity to note that while our staff has continued to make occasional use of Paint in designing header images, we’re far more likely to use the free third-party app Paint.NET.