Microsoft confirms when WordPad will be scrapped β later this year with Windows 11 24H2
It’s now official that when Windows 11’s big 24H2 update arrives later this year, we’ll be saying goodbye to WordPad.
This comes as no surprise, as we’d already heard the death knell for the venerable default app, when Microsoft announced that WordPad was deprecated in September 2023, and then disappeared from Windows 11 preview builds in January 2024. At the time, we were told that future releases of Windows 11 would not include WordPad.
If Windows Latest Spotted, we now have new information from Microsoft, which provides concrete confirmation that the 24H2 update will happen when WordPad is dumped from its desktop operating system.
Microsoft tells us: βWordPad will be removed from all editions of Windows starting with Windows 11, version 24H2 and Windows Server 2025.β
Windows Latest checked the current preview builds of Windows 11 24H2, looked for WordPad in the Start menu and its associated files in various folders, and found that everything had been taken out.
Analysis: WordPad down, Notepad up
In the past, Microsoft has made it clear that you won’t be able to reinstall WordPad one way or another (and that the app won’t be present in new installations of Windows 11). So you won’t be able to avoid losing WordPad when the 24H2 update rolls out to Windows 11 users, which should be around September 2024 (or maybe a little later). As always, it will be a phased rollout, so you may not get 24H2 right away anyway.
There is one obvious way to keep WordPad, and that is to not use the 24H2 update when it is released. In any case, you can hold on to 23H2 for as long as it’s supported, which is until November 2025. After that (or even just before that), Microsoft will start forcing PC upgrades from 23H2 (as users without support and security updates will be at risk of unpatched exploits).
Of course, if you don’t get the 24H2 update, you’ll be missing out on a whole bunch of new features β so WordPad better be worth a lot to you. Windows 11 24H2 promises to be a major update, which not only brings new functionality, but also changes the foundation of the operating system with a new platform β Germanium, which ushers in performance and security benefits under the hood.
Furthermore, Notepad remains in Windows 11, and Microsoft’s stance on it is very different as it is still actively developing this lightweight text editing app. Notepad has expanded beyond its traditional simplicity, adding features like spell check and autocorrect (and there could even be an AI addition in the form of Cowriter).
Perhaps this is all happening precisely because WordPad is being dropped, making Notepad easier to use as a mini-Word alternative, so to speak.