Posted on 07/24/2017 11:52:30 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Microsoft was reportedly axing its beloved Microsoft Paint. The program, which has been annotating our memes, creating our webcomics, and teaching us how to art since 1985, is on Microsoft’s list of Windows features to be removed or deprecated in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.
But this doesn’t mean Paint as we know it is dead! The list Paint was featured on very specifically says that each product will either be killed, or it will be deprecated—which merely means it will no longer be actively developed. Paint falls into the latter category. So it could be dropped in a future update, or it could hang around for the next decade—an artifact of a different time.
Outlook Express, another Windows application that’s conjures memories for older users, is being killed in the same update. It is officially supplanted by the big boy Microsoft Outlook, which is more stylistically in line with Windows 10 than Outlook Express.
While Outlook Express has long languished in the shadow of its hipper Outlook cousin, MS Paint has seen infrequent updates that at least allow it to look like it belongs on a 2017 computer instead of one from 1985. Microsoft is very aware of how much affection users have for Microsoft Paint. The product, which many of us used as a digital doodling book when we were kids, has a cult following. When Microsoft briefed press on the original Creators Update back in March, its representatives only had nice things to say about the application. Paint is on every Windows computer! It makes creating art easy! It’s like Photoshop but simple and free!
This is not how you talk when you’re planning to ax a product. This is definitely the kind of talk you deliver when you’re launching a new Paint product.
Which was what was happening at that press briefing. Microsoft launched Paint 3D, a 3D rendering and printing tool intended to simplify the production of 3D products, in March. The name Paint 3D was specifically used so play on people’s nostalgia for MS Paint. It’s not unreasonable to expect that the upcoming Fall Creators Update will see Paint 3D expanded to incorporate the features we all know and love from Paint.
Either way, it is not in Microsoft’s best interest to kill an application that has been loved for more than 30 years by users. Right now Microsoft is campaigning to steal all the artists and other creators who have traditionally preferred the Mac ecosystem for creating digital art. It’s why Microsoft spent so much time talking about the Surface Pen when it updated the Surface Pro a few months ago, and it’s why it launched the Surface Studio last October. Heck, it’s why it keeps calling every new Windows OS update a “creators” update. It wants those users!
Transforming its most enduring creative application into something more robust is a clear next step. Eventually Microsoft could kill the ugly version of Paint we love in order to release shiny new version of Paint or a Paint-adjacent application. Or Microsoft could just leave MS Paint in the Deprecated column for a while, a cool app eventually destined to be forgotten as younger computer users snap up alternate tools like Photoshop Express or Autodesk Sketchbook. Either way Microsoft Paint isn’t dead, it’s just deprecated, and Microsoft has made no comment on how long it could be deprecated. So maybe don’t go ordering funeral flowers just yet.
We’ve reached out to Microsoft to learn more about the plans for Paint and will update if we hear back get back to us.
I used to erase the tail numbers off of private jet charter availabilities with Paint.... good commissions....good times.....good program.
Some of the original developers for MS Paint wrote Paint.net, which I use as a poor man’s Photoshop.
Good stuff.
http://IrfanView.com is free and a lot easier to use and does a lot more.
I use it too. Quick and easy. FMCDH they can have Paint.
I live in a locked down secure computing environment. Sometimes Paint is the only way I can finish a job.
Can’t count the times I had to do a screen print, copy to paint, save and mail to computer support to get something fixed.
And greatly improved beginning at Windows 7.
I use it for screen capture trim and paste several times a day. Simple but effective.
Was the reason for that to prevent potential clients from contacting the aircraft owner directly and bypassing the travel broker?
Hang on to a copy of mspaint.exe.
The .mil network I work on is still running win 7 on the desktops and server 2008.
Interesting, thanks.
I like one called irfanview for cropping and image adjustments, etc. Also free. It works great for altering the resolution of images.
Well, it was coughing up blood last night
MS Paint and Tinypic.com are great tools for posting on FR.
I have an old xp box at home old paint is terrible and useless.
Hey, I just used it a couple of seconds ago! — Screen capture, trim and paste, screen capture, trim and paste and done, released.
Sometimes a picture is not the right angle and I’d like to rotate it a couple of degrees — Word works for this, cntrl C, paste into Word, rotate, ctrl C, ctrl V and done.
There are many paint apps for android that are free that are far better then Paint.
For Windows try:
EZ Paint
http://ezpaintsoftware.com
Paint.NET
https://www.getpaint.net
For sale: ArtRage $79
https://www.artrage.com/
I got so used to using Photoshop CS5 at the job that when it was removed, and not reprogrammed back in to a new computer I was given, that when I was forced to use Paint I was completely lost. I miss my Photoshop.
Yip
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