Microsoft Paint is ‘here to stay, it will just have a new home’

UPDATE: 8:29 p.m. — Microsoft Paint isn’t going away, just somewhere else, the company said in a blog post on Monday night.

MS Paint will now be available in the Windows Store for free, said Megan Saunders, general manager of the 3D for Everyone Initiative, Windows Experiences.

Meanwhile, Paint 3D will be available for free with the Windows 10 Creators Update. 

“If there’s anything we learned, it’s that after 32 years, MS Paint has a lot of fans,” she wrote.

ORIGINAL POST: 

There was a collective groan of sadness around the world Monday after computer giant Microsoft confirmed the end is nigh for graphics editing program Paint.

Used by millions of people — often in childhood, too — Paint originated in 1985 as part of the Windows computer platform. After 32 years as a Windows staple, Microsoft’s latest Windows 10 update will not include Paint.

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Other programs being nixed include the once-ubiquitous Outlook Express, the Reader app and the Reading list, among a few others.

Paint holds a special place in many hearts, mainly because it was one of the first graphics-editing programs, and its simplistic tools meant for easy (albeit not necessarily the prettiest) drawing and painting.

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Paint premiered in the very first version of Windows 1.0 as a 1-bit monochrome version of ZSoft’s PC Paintbrush. It wasn’t even able to save images as a JPEG until Windows 98.

In Paint’s stead, Microsoft is offering its new version of the software, the Paint 3D app. (In April’s Windows 10 Creator update, the software company presented Paint 3D alongside Paint as an introduction.) While it features some basic 2D graphics editing, its main strength is 3D editing, and it bears virtually no similarities to the original Paint.

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Tech critics point out that the two software programs are vastly different, and say Paint 3D is “more of a toy than a tool.” Several software reviewers said that the “messy-fingered headache” is also most likely too difficult for a child to use, and doesn’t possess the variety of tools that Paint did.

Microsoft hasn’t confirmed the exact date Paint will be removed from Windows, nor has the company said why it’s phasing out the software, but many people on social media were pre-emptively despondent about it being killed off.

Sorry, Paintphiles, it looks like there’s nothing left to do but find another graphics editor to wile away the hours.

• With files from Jesse Ferreras