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This is very upsetting to me–more as a point of principle than in fact–but I appreciate that it doesn’t bother younger generations at all. I just had a small argument with my 11 year old about how not-a-big-deal-who-cares this is, and it basically ended with us agreeing to disagree since it’ll be his problem and his kids’ problem.
And the problem is normalizing the notion that an OS doesn’t need to include a non-subscription word processor. The entire point of this move is to shift the OS Overton Window in favor of consumers accepting and expecting that features like word processors, spreadsheets, etc., should be installed separately and paid for on a subscription basis despite previous iterations of the same software being feature complete on install and purchased at a set, non-recurring fee.
WordPad hasn’t been anybody’s first choice for a word processor in years, but it was included with Windows and did the bare minimum for unsophisticated users. Now we’re entering an era in which those users will as a matter of course buy off-the-shelf computers that come pre-installed without WordPad, but rather with a trial of Office Fuck-You-Pay-Me Edition. Those users may well discover that after their first six months with their new computer (that has made Microsoft more money selling their data than they paid for it), they suddenly get a pop-up informing them that their trial is up and MS wants $99.99 to release the documents they’re holding hostage.
It’s a step backwards for consumers in general, so even for the sophisticated of us who are least likely to be personally affected by this change, there’s definitely cause for alarm.
Tbh I use Notepad way more than anything for note making.
If it needs to be formatted, OneNote is free to use and can be saved in any cloud (if there is a shortcut like OneDrive or Dropbox in the Windows explorer)
If it needs to be free and not very sophisticated, I’d look around for a markdown based editor.If all of that fails, I will use Word.
Never used Wordpad in 15 years (of 24 years of existence) except while trying to open word but Windows suggesting Wordpad first.Google Docs is free and has basically become the standard word processor for the “unsophisticated users” you’re worried about. It essentially comes with your OS because you only need a browser to use it.
I think your kid and his children will survive.
it still has strings attached, its not truly “free”. heck, google won’t let it be word pad had no ties to Microsoft once it was given to you. everything else but LibreOffice and some others still have its creator’s ties.
Likely scenario, honestly.
I really don’t worry about it, though.
Not to brag, but it doesn’t bother me.
Understand, there is a solution.
X marks the spot.(Yeah, I know, that’s kind of stupid. But it seemed funny in my head.)
I can’t read you
I’ve given everything, but you seem distant
I can’t feel you
Your heart is somewhere else, it’s missin’
What if I read back to you?
You have a piece, but there’s two
Someone please get this reference.
Then they ask their grandson or work it dept what they should do and both will answer libre office is free
I disagree. I don’t think a rich text editor should be part of the OS as it’s not there to operate the computer. An OS should be the tools to run applications and manage your computer. There are a bunch of apps which are so small that it makes sense to include them - like a calculator and text editor, but everything else should be optional.
There should be an OS out there for you which doesn’t come with a rich text editor. [If there is ever a time to mention GNU+Linux in a MS thread then now is that time.] For most people however, not including it is a needless barrier to entry.
Why in gods name don’t you use libre office. It’s so much better than word and excel for rent
Because libre office is not compatible with many others. You can open it sure but there’s no guarantee that opening .doc or .docx will have broken formatting. Not good for those in the academia or workplace where formatting are strictly enforce.
Absolute bullshit. Microsoft moved to the Open Office document standard after they were forced to and Libre is renown for its ability to open Microsoft’s documents without issue. I have opened countless personally.
Do yourself a favour and get off the junk office suite that hasn’t received a functional update in the last 10 years that wasn’t to improve its rent charging capacity.
I used it for my damn resume because I didn’t have word, didn’t need office. I also liked it because when friends asked me to review a document I could open word documents with it, I would do that sometimes even when I had office because WordPad opened faster and I didn’t need perfect formatting.
I think it is safe to say that your 11 year old is factually wrong lol. But it is okay that they don’t understand how bad this is because the concept of how multiple businesses have switched to subscription based models even in places we wouldn’t expect, like a monthly subscription allowing already installed hardware in your car to actually function, cause it’s just 11 year Olds don’t have a great concept of bills and money at that level yet. I say wait for their first complaint of it as an adult and then put on your carefully choreographed and practiced “I told you so” dance
Okay kidding aside I think it is absolutely wonderful this is something you didn’t just have a conversation with your young kid about but that you had to agree to disagree, you sound like a fantastic parent who actually fosters a relationship with their kid. And probably only rarely says I told you so.
Honestly, what is the point of Wordpad when you have Notepad and Word?
Honestly I’m not too bummed, especially with open-source solutions like Notepad++, but it’s the end of an era! Also, Word is paid, and so Windows not having a built in free RTF editor is notable
Not all of us have Word, and Notepad doesn’t have rich text or the ability to open .doc files.
LibreOffice is free
And huge. And bloated, if you only need simple functionality.
Except it will nuke .docx formatting. Same in reverse.
I make templates for my clients and I always tell them not to open and save in any other client other than OpenOffice.
Even Libre does nuke some parts to some extend…You’re assuming everyone is a power user. There will be thousands of people who won’t have an alternative and think that paying for word is the only option.
This is to fuck over the casual computer user who doesn’t know better or alternatives. Microsoft already knows that more informed users like us are a lost cause to upsell.
This is also why they tried that “malware” pop up to get people to go back to Edge. To once again, fuck over uninformed users.
Abiword is FOSS and would be my choice over Wordpad anyway.
It has been literally twenty years since I last heard any mention of Abiword!
I probably haven’t thought if it for like 10 years myself but this post reminded me of it. I remember maybe 15 years ago using a portable version of it on a USB drive, and it was amazing.
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Also try editing unix or Mac line endings in notepad
I use notepad super often as a copy edit paste aid. It loads in a millisecond.
Easy way to distribute rich text documents to users without them having to install anything.
WordPad was a fast and efficient way to view doc files without loading into LibreOffice or any other office suite, or to make rich text documents quickly. But alas, we have to go to the cloud for our notes now…
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Do the ultimate OP solution and host your own nextcloud. It has built in office and everything google drive has.
of course, gotta push more people to that godawful office 365 crap somehow
Seriously, the market share of Wordpad users is so small Microsoft absolutely does not care
To be replaced by a link to WordPad Bing AI Edition
Ew. I’m annoyed by how correct you likely are.
Am completely expecting this to be due to falling office sales or fear that people will realize they don’t need expensive Office every few years when WordPad has 90% of functionality for daily use.
I expect this will make a lot of people very angry since I know many users of WordPad.
I dont think I know any person who uses Wordpad. Most probably dont even know that it exists, hidden away somewhere in the starting menu…
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They changed their licensing and specifically for robot users so I suspect it’s to funnel those users into licenses which is a lot more than consumers.
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it will deprecate WordPad with a future Windows update as it’s no longer under active development
It doesn’t need “active development” because it is perfect the way it is. Unix/Linux has tons of useful programs that haven’t been in active development for 40-50 years.
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I haven’t been using Wordpad for 20+ years. Notepad could do everything it does already. Then, you also have Firefox’s built-in inspect to tinker with code on the fly.
Only thing I used it for was when older versions of Notepad couldn’t handle larger text files. Now it can. So, no loss to me. Notepad going away would suck, that does at least get occasional use although Notepad++ is far superior.
Notepad++ can’t handle as big files for some reason. At work we have files that can reach 5-600 MB, and NP++ can’t always open those, but notepad handles then with no problem.
I had the same problem but noticed that I was using the 32 bit version of notepad++, installed the 64 bits instead and had no problems with large files
That might actually be something to bring up with IT…
I’ve opened 4GB files with notepad++ before. Sure, it takes several minutes (I basically have to go away and do something else, or leave it loading in the background) but it gets there, eventually.
NP++ straight up tells us it’s too big to be opened…
That sounds backwards… I occasionally have to open log files of 1 gig or more, and notepad++ gets sluggish, but is usable, while notepad just hangs until I kill it…
Someone suggested that we might have the 32-bit version, and that that might be the problem. I have no way of checking for a few months though, since I’m on parental leave until January. Because our NP++ just says that the files are too big to be opened. Sidenote: Sometimes it can open files that are a bit bigger, and sometimes only a bit smaller… So it’s not a hard limit that is the same at all times.
Klogg. I always avoid Microsoft when possible.
Would if I could, but work is pretty strict with what we can use.
It’s a portable app and runs in use space. So no install. I’m in the same boat with work. Open source apps are great for just running an app.
Then it will depend on if we are allowed to download it at all. Can’t be sure about that.
Genuinely curious—why would someone choose to use notepad++ over something like VSCode in 2023?
I can’t say I’ve used n++ in over a decade when I switched to sublime around 2010, moved again to VSCode about 5 years ago
N++ can search for a string in a directory full of files, that’s what I use it for. Also helpful for showing unprintable characters like linefeeds or changing bit order mode, I’m not sure vs code can do any of that.
For writing code, though, I do use vs code
IIRC you can do both of those with VSCode, I think even without any extensions too!
The search sidebar has include and exclude fields for directories to search in.
For showing unprintable characters, I think it’s split into two settings: one for whitespace one for control characters like null and bell
I wasn’t aware of that, I’ll have to check it out. Thank you.
NP++ is more lightweight and has some useful stuff builtin and easier to justify to IT dept to than a full IDE 🤷
Personally I prefer pycharm and Atom for my home needs.
Justifying it to IT makes a lot of sense actually. Particularly if you need extensions. I’m lucky I get admin on my laptop where I work
Interesting you’re using atom, actually! Is it still getting much love? I assumed development would go by the wayside once Microsoft bought GitHub a few years ago (as VSCode is almost an identical product)
Yeah it’s on my personal machine, I use it alongside pycharm but it’s (atom) not my main IDE, I keep it because of a few things it does. I disagree vscode is the same, it’s a poorer implementation of pycharm IMHO. Just my opinion though everyone is different in workspace.
I’m interested in what differs from atom about VSCode in your opinion.
Wasn’t VSCode a fork of atom originally?edit: apparently not! When I was picking between the two about 5 years ago, they seemed almost identical to meI’m personally not a big fan of heavy IDEs like the jetbrains products, so VSCode being lighter than pycharm (or any of the IDEA products) is a bonus to me.
Look at Atom community. Speed to load is night and day.
For me, Vscode feels like a cheaper pycharm which is my primary IDE and wouldn’t change as I’ve tried vscode as an alt and it wasn’t good enough for how I work.
Fair play, everyone’s different, I work with another guy who swears by the jetbrains stuff, but it just seems very clunky to me every time I’ve tried it.
I’ll have to give atom another look then, though I’d say VSCode starts in about a second on my machine, so startup time alone probably wouldn’t be a reason for me to switch
They must not be able to spy on people thru it
Honestly, this blows. WordPad fills a niche between a full blown text editor and notepad. Most of my random daily notes use WordPad still when not OneNote.
Notepad++ was a good alternative when I was running Windows
That’s an alternative to Notepad, not for Wordpad that has basic word processing formatting.
Wow someone was using this?
You can likely still grab the exe and use it
I don’t get why they aren’t retiring notepad instead. WordPad is just as light and fast while having more features.
Not that I really care, I never touch either ever since MS basically stopped developing them 25 years ago. Notepad++, atom, etc, there are so many superb lightweight editors out there.
Probably don’t use Atom though seeing as it was sunset at the end of 2022
I recently started using a markdown based note taking program called Joplin, that might be useful for you
Check out Obsidian ;)
I love obsidian too!
As long as they leave Notepad. I use it almost daily.
I feel like even Microsoft would not be crazy enough to remove notepad.
I don’t like Apple but they ship their devices with everything a basic user needs and if a high quality, completely for free. When you get a MacBook you don’t need to worry about finding and downloading an external app for almost anything - from viewing any kind of file, to basic photo and video editing, to document processing, etc. And they don’t track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
Except for a calculator on iPads.
Indeed
And they don’t track every minute thing you do
You sure about that? I just bought my mom a new iPad Air yesterday and the setup process was maddeningly privacy invading. Name, address, and phone number just to install anything from the Apple store. Both me and my mom, who’s not tech savvy at all, thought it was crazy the amount of info we had to put in just to get a usable device.
and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
There was also so many preloaded garbage apps installed by default. Why are apps like Measure there? Yes when I want to measure something…I reach for an iPad…instead of…you know…a tape measure… Just because they’re first party apps doesn’t make this okay. Also, Apple’s ecosystem is famous for vendor lock-in.
They may not be as blatant about it as Google is, but they’re every bit as bad tbh.
" And they don’t track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products."
LOL ok
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They weren’t investigated for antitrust for baking stuff into the OS - it was for monopolizing various sectors and strong arming users and competitors. They’re allowed to have their own browser preinstalled, they just have to let you switch easily and remove it etc.
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This is tru, however MacOS is still a lesser version of linux with a fancy skin. You have to get third party apps to support ntfs formatted drives.
MacOS has nothing to do with Linux, it’s a bsd variant.
Lol overpriced locked down PoS os
What’s the MacBook equivalent of MS Paint? Open it, paste from clipboard, and then do a simple crop/edit? I was looking to do this the other day and nothing seemed to work.
I don’t think Macs are as batteries included as some people think.
You can do that in Preview.
Man fuck Microsoft. Killing a free app and replacing it with a paid app that has a subscription bundled.
What the actual fuck!!?
It’s word pad though, do you really ever use it? I use notepad for a quick temp fix in a pinch, I haven’t used word pad in like 15 years.
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Honestly if I need to format, that gets done in the app that I’m going to send whatever text.
Whatever goes into notepad for me will either get deleted, go into notepad++, or whatever app I’m going to send it (office).
Sounds like you could benefit from replacing WordPad with Notepad++.
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Regularly
Wow really? What for? I’ve seriously never heard of or seen somebody use it.
When I need to copy something from instructions out of a doc file, so much faster to open copy and close before word even opens
Oh yeah I’m not saying use word. Notepad++ or the native sticky notes are both good alternatives for WordPad.
Fair point, I do use n++ a lot
RIP WordPad coders.
Time to switch to a real pro IDE, which is Word obviously.
Not to worry my dear Wordpad coders: Neovim is a good alternative. One can always set wrap and the default font to Times New Roman.
It was lighter than word or libre and had formatting, unlike simple word editors like notepad++. Bummer to see it go but surely there is (or will be) an alternative
You can probably still install this. Just like paint (the old version) and the non ad filled solitaire etc
