Microsoft has released two new Canary Builds of Windows 11, and both of them appear to spell the end for WordPad, the popular (albeit basic) word processor that Microsoft introduced 28 years ago with Windows 95. WordPad is no longer installed when doing a clean install of the OS, according to the changelog for Preview Build 26040, while a previous version noted that “WordPad will not be reinstallable.”
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26020 notes:
Starting with this build, the WordPad and People apps will no longer be installed after doing a clean install of the OS. In a future flight, WordPad will be removed on upgrade. WordPad will not be reinstallable. WordPad is a deprecated Windows feature. For more information on the future of the People app, click here.
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26040 notes:
As we mentioned with Build 26020, WordPad is removed when doing a clean install and now is also removed on upgrade starting with this build.
Microsoft on WordPad’s depreciation, announced on September 1, 2023:
WordPad is no longer being updated and will be removed in a future release of Windows.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.