It feels sad to see an old friend pass away. Especially when the death is announced in advance and you know there’s nothing you can do. You hadn’t really been in touch with that friend for years, but you saw him here and there. Knowing he’s with you was comforting. However when their time comes, you start to feel bad. MS Paint is this old friend who is about to pass away. How old, you ask? 32 years old!
That little paint app in your PC which hasn’t been opened in years, and which was perhaps opened accidentally last time, is soon about to be phased out. Microsoft has announced that with their Fall Creator’s Update, the app will cease to exist. The moment of realization came when MS Paint was listed under “features that are removed or deprecated in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update”, and just like that, the death sentence has been announced.
Melodrama aside, MS Paint is not going anywhere. This just means that Microsoft will no longer be putting any development efforts on the app, and it will eventually, maybe over a long-long term, be phased out. It’s shadowy existence will remain and the app will hang around your PC but it will no longer be worked upon. For all practical purposes, the app is dead to Microsoft.
The last major update to Paint came last year when the company introduced Paint 3D, which gave a very modern approach to the app. However, this radical change of look and feel was rejected by many users. MS Paint, which is now used majorly by meme makers, is a silent comfort. As of now it is unclear if Microsoft plans to remove it entirely from PCs which will run on the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, or do they just plan to stop the development. It is heavily anticipated to be the latter.
