Two years ago, Microsoft made headlines when it announced the deprecation of Paint, the classic graphics editor that has been included in all Windows versions since Windows 1.0. The company initially said that the desktop app could be removed in a future version of Windows 10 following the Fall Creators Update, but remain available as a free download on the Windows 10 Microsoft Store.
This was back in 2017, a couple months after Microsoft shipped a new Paint 3D UWP app with the Windows 10 Creators Update. The plan was for Paint 3D to replace MS Paint over time, and the latter did gain a “Product Alert” button warning users of the upcoming replacement of Classic Paint by Paint 3D.
As you may have noticed recently, this Product Alert is gone in the version of Paint that ships in the Windows 10 May 2019 Update, and we finally have a confirmation that the legacy app isn’t going away anytime soon. In an answer to a question about the Product Alert being gone from MS Paint, Brandon LeBlanc from the Windows Insider team said on Twitter that the app will “remain included in Windows 10 for now” (via The Verge).
Yes, MSPaint will be included in 1903. It'll remain included in Windows 10 for now.
— Brandon LeBlanc (@brandonleblanc) April 23, 2019
If you already used Paint 3D and Classic Paint side by side, you’ll probably agree that Microsoft made the right call here. The poor reception that Windows 8 got a couple of years ago made it pretty clear that Windows users generally dislike change, and there’s still no good reason to remove an app that most Windows users are familiar with, and which remains much easier to use than Paint 3D. The latter hasn’t received meaningful updates in quite some time, but it will continue to ship with Windows 10 for the time being.
