This article has been updated, as a Microsoft spokesperson has now told HuffPost UK: “MS Paint is not going away. In addition to the new 3D capabilities, many of the MS Paint features people know and love like photo editing and 2D creation are in Paint 3D - the new app for creativity, available for free with the Windows 10 Creators update. In the future, we will offer MS Paint in the Windows Store also for free and continue to provide new updates and experiences to Paint 3D so people have the best creative tools all in one place.”
Microsoft has announced plans that indicate it is ready to kill off Paint after 32 years of loyal artistic service.
The tech giant revealed their latest operating system updates for 2017 and although Paint isn’t to be scrapped immediately, it is no longer “in active development”.
Suggesting (fairly strongly) that it will be ditched soon enough.
In the ‘Windows 10 Fall Creators Update’ statement, Microsoft said: “This list is intended to help customers consider these removals and deprecations for their own planning.”
Shorthand for, you all need to move on with your lives.
Introduced back in 1985, Paint was never renowned for its extreme technical capabilities, but was a default program familiar to many early computer users, having been featured on every update for over three decades.
Obviously the internet is not happy with the news, and has already started mourning the loss of our favourite childhood software.
But there is some hope it may be retained, as Microsoft clarified: “The list is subject to change and may not include every deprecated feature or functionality.”
Fingers crossed.