In the latest beta version of Windows 11 available to Insider members, Microsoft has formalized the death of WordPad, the famous word processing software launched 28 years ago on Windows 95. For the manufacturer, WordPad is obsolete and no longer has of use today.
We mentioned this sad news for the first time in our columns in September 2023. And yes, Microsoft is determined to put an end to the career of WordPad, famous word processing software present on the manufacturer’s OS for almost 28 years NOW. WordPad actually began its career on Windows 95It does not make us younger.
For the Redmond firm, it is therefore time for WordPad to bow out, even though the software has not seen any major updates for several years. However, we were missing one important detail: When does Microsoft plan to put WordPad on the shelf? We know more about this.
Microsoft removes WordPad in latest Windows 11 beta
Indeed, the American company has just deployed a new version of Windows 11 on the Canary channel. Insider members noticed that WordPad was no longer accessible on the latest beta of the OS. Microsoft also confirmed the thing in a statement: “From this version, the WordPad and Contacts applications will no longer be installed natively after a new installation of the operating system. In an upcoming deployment, WordPad will be removed during an update. WordPad cannot be reinstalled. WordPad is an obsolete Windows feature.
In the rest of his speech, the manufacturer invites users to turn to the two other existing solutions for word processing, namely Word obviously and Notepad. “We recommend Microsoft Word for rich text documents like .doc and .rtf, and Windows Notepad for plain text documents like txt.”, he advises.
Let us add that Windows 11 Insider Preview build 26020 will also permanently remove Cortana. A benching which is not really surprising, at a time when Microsoft is pushing its Copilot AI on its products such as the Bing browser. Recently, we even learned that the next PCs running Windows 11 will all be equipped with a dedicated Copilot key on their keyboard.