7 ms·

This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use. Whenever I need to make an arbitrary

This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use. Whenever I need to make an arbitrary image real quick I miss this version of Paint. Nothing else I can find in 2020 even comes close to its intuitive interface.

smhenderson 6y ago
Isn't mspaint in Windows 10 basically the same thing but with a ribbon instead of a toolbar? I don't much care for the ribbon but I'm used to it now. Hitting WinKey-R, mspaint, [Enter] is still my goto for simple picture editing, even just recording a screenshot despite the existence of the snipping tool... Other than the minor annoyance of getting used to the ribbon I felt as if I was still using the same old paint when I did this.
- somehnguy 6y ago
  It's similar but in my opinion with every release Microsoft makes their products slightly more unintuitive. This version of Paint is far simpler to view and instantly know what to click to get what you want.
  - CarbyAu 6y ago
    Similar to you, "discoverability" is what irks me about MS trend recently. As you say, the version you can "view and instantly know" = easy to discover what/how you can do. A lot of MS stuff recently seems to have forgotten that people need visual cues to "know" what to do.
- JoeSmithson 6y ago
  Two things I dislike about the new Paint are; 1. Can't select secondary colour with right click 2. Needs way more clicks to get a filled Rectangle
  - mumbisChungo 6y ago
    Number 2 took me from using paint constantly to just using photoshop instead.
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    1. Use shift+click.
  - unholythree 6y ago
    I still find myself trying to do #1 frequently
  - forgotpwd16 6y ago
    1. On latest Windows version I am on now it works as the classic paint. 2. On classic paint you set colors > rectangle > select filling (w/ outline or w/o). On new paint is set colors > rectangle > fill > select filling > outline > select outline. So 1 or 3 more if you want to remove the outline.
- userbinator 6y ago
  I immediately searched for the XP version the first time I encountered this extremely frustrating behaviour: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-desktop/windows-10-paint-and-the-line-tool/0799e78c-46d3-4caa-8c6e-5c8ad4c2ddf1 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10...
  - airstrike 6y ago
    I honestly would prefer if the post was left unanswered than having to read shit like > Hi, > Thanks for the update on the issue. > We have tested the same with the latest Windows updates installed on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. > As suggested, I would recommend sharing this as a feedback on the Feedback app of Windows 10. > Do let us know if you face any Windows related issues in future. We will be glad to assist you. > Good Day!
    - marcoperaza 6y ago
      That whole forum is a dumpster fire. When a search takes me there, I brace myself to read a poorly-written, incorrect, dismissive answer. Nine times out of ten, the questioner is clearly more knowledgeable about the problem than the person answering it.
- alternatetwo 6y ago
  Win Vista and later paint replaces the palette of a 256 color bitmap with a completely different one upon saving, to name a major and breaking difference. I grabbed the paint.exe from an old XP and it works absolutely fine, even on 7 and probably 10.
- badsectoracula 6y ago
  No, it is a very different application. For example when you draw something, like a rectangle, and then you try to draw something else over it, it instead moves the rectangle - failing to do the most basic task: being a paint program. It does have some nice features, like the premade shapes and brushes, but those could have been added to the previous MS Paint application without breaking its UX.
umvi 6y ago
> I miss this version of Paint Well you are in luck: https://archive.org/details/MSPaintWinXP https://archive.org/details/MSPaintWinXP I use this all the time on my Windows 10 box. Just download, rename to "mspaintxp.exe" and put it in C:\Windows\System32. Optionally update Paint shortcut to point to that one so when you type "Paint" in start menu that's the new default.
- microcolonel 6y ago
  If you're looking to run it with Wine, you'll also want a copy of the IA32 version of mfc42u.dll. added: totally necessary proof https://qui.suis.je/drop/peakfun.png https://qui.suis.je/drop/peakfun.png
  - grapeli23 6y ago
    It also works in the browser under JSLinux in Wine (requires mfc42u.dll). https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=alpine-x86-xwin.cfg&mem=256&graphic=1 https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=alpine-x86-xwin.cfg&...
- notJim 6y ago
  In fact, you don't need to go to all this trouble if you don't want to. Someone has made a web-based version of paint you can use right from your browser, even if you don't have Windows installed. Link: https://chowderman.github.io/xp-paint.html https://chowderman.github.io/xp-paint.html
  - edjrage 6y ago
    That's awesome! Someone should post this on HN.
    - Piisamirotta 6y ago
      Indeed! So we could discuss about it!
MayeulC 6y ago
Kolourpain is better. It does transparency, fill with a configurable distance, and supports more file formats. Other than these, it's quite similar :) https://kde.org/applications/graphics/org.kde.kolourpaint https://kde.org/applications/graphics/org.kde.kolourpaint http://www.kolourpaint.org/screenshots.html http://www.kolourpaint.org/screenshots.html (that website could use an update...)
- Supermancho 6y ago
  Photoshop is better, or should I say https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/ Is Kolourpaint available as a website I can visit right now? Lots of editors are "better" from a feature standpoint. That's not the feature that is relevant to the discussion.
  - zapzupnz 6y ago
    > That's not the feature that is relevant to the discussion. Not to the thread overall, but it is relevant to this thread in particular. GP didn't mention any specifics regarding whether or not the editor is available online; they merely spoke about Paint's simplicity relative to everything else.
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    I'm sorry if I should have been more nuanced. Lack of transparency support was my number 1 pet peeve back with mspaint. Kolourpaint's scope and interface are similar. It can be found in most distributions'packages, and on flathub. Looks like nobody bothered to package it for windows, though, which is a shame.
  - forgotpwd16 6y ago
    Wow, Photopea runs extremely smoothly. On my old laptop it runs better than native image editors.
m-p-3 6y ago
If you need just a bit more functionality, I find Paint.NET to be quite good while not too complex.
- Firehawke 6y ago
  Yep. It's not at the level of Photoshop but it does a pretty good chunk of the intermediate-level features that you might need for more complex projects (e.g. layers)
- wazanator 6y ago
  Paint.net is still one of the very first things I install on a fresh Windows install. It's simple to use but provides enough depth if you want it without feeling overwhelming on opening. Gimps interface has come a long way but it's still not as user friendly as paint.net I feel.
pubby 6y ago
Check out mtPaint. It's very similar to old school paint, and works on Linux too. http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/ http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/
sedatk 6y ago
I find Paint.NET excellent for both basic scenarios and advanced ones too (it supports layers, effects etc). Strongly recommended. https://getpaint.net https://getpaint.net It's free but it's also available in Microsoft Store as a paid product, which gets automatic updates as a small extra and mostly works as a donation towards the developer.
- akersten 6y ago
  I love Paint .NET, but I wince every time I go to their website (which is not paint.net) to download it: the download button[1] gives me strong "clicking this will give you a shareware virus from 2005" vibe. It is also very sketchy that their website (getpaint.net) redirects to another site (dotpdn.com) for the actual download page. I power through these feelings and download it anyway, knowing what wonderful software awaits on the other side, but it's really hard to shake those thoughts. [1]: https://imgur.com/a/pfVCnLN https://imgur.com/a/pfVCnLN
  - DCKing 6y ago
    I recommend everyone on HN using Windows to use Chocolatey and Chocolatey GUI to install their software. Chocolatey is a package manager / "app store" for FOSS and other free-to-install software on Windows. Downloading random installers was always flawed, but it's not getting any better. Chocolatey is the best you can get as a Homebrew/Homebrew Cask equivalent on Windows, and even if it takes some getting used to is so much better than navigating the web for installers.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - swinglock 6y ago
      These days I prefer https://scoop.sh/ https://scoop.sh/. Chocolatey is fine but it would sometimes cause problems which I frankly don't remember. With scoop I've had no issues.
      - 6y ago
Exorus18 6y ago
Yup, during college I even created electrical schematics in MS Paint during one course, nobody believed it was done using it :) Although I must admit creating schematics in CAD software is more sane ;)
arrrg 6y ago
I’m always perplexed by this. Maybe I lack the artistic talent? Paint could never cover any of my use cases. For that it was always too much about … well … painting … which is something I just don’t need on a day to day basis. The painting focus seems completely misguided to most of the typical use cases I can imagine. My quintessential perfect tool is always the Preview App on macOS: You can add simple shapes, arrows and text to any images. You can rotate, crop and resize images. You can reorder, rotate, split and merge PDF documents. That’s all very well tailored to most common use cases. In terms of image editing I guess you can do all that with Paint but it seems clumsy to me. Not really fit for that purpose. And if I don’t want to mark something up but create something new (which will typically heavily rely on text even if it’s more visual, like a birthday invitation) the text editing is too weak to get anywhere really useful, so for that I would rather use some kind of either text editor or layouting program.
- willis936 6y ago
  Contemporary paint is much better. XP paint was missing some of the most basic and essential features of a pixel editor. Without a proper and simple cropping interface it’s little more than an aesthetic setpiece.
artifact_44 6y ago
photopea.com
asddubs 6y ago
kolourpaint is the exact same thing as windows xp paint. part of kde, but you can also find windows builds online
Macha 6y ago
Well it could crop as well. Then I'd give you 90%.
voldacar 6y ago
> This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use. At some point Microsoft just forgot how to make software like this - sometime between 2005 and 2010 I think. OSes no longer come with simple, lightweight tools that are unsophisticated and just do what you want

smhenderson 6y ago

Isn't mspaint in Windows 10 basically the same thing but with a ribbon instead of a toolbar? I don't much care for the ribbon but I'm used to it now. Hitting WinKey-R, mspaint, [Enter] is still my goto for simple picture editing, even just recording a screenshot despite the existence of the snipping tool... Other than the minor annoyance of getting used to the ribbon I felt as if I was still using the same old paint when I did this.

somehnguy 6y ago
It's similar but in my opinion with every release Microsoft makes their products slightly more unintuitive. This version of Paint is far simpler to view and instantly know what to click to get what you want.
- CarbyAu 6y ago
  Similar to you, "discoverability" is what irks me about MS trend recently. As you say, the version you can "view and instantly know" = easy to discover what/how you can do. A lot of MS stuff recently seems to have forgotten that people need visual cues to "know" what to do.
JoeSmithson 6y ago
Two things I dislike about the new Paint are; 1. Can't select secondary colour with right click 2. Needs way more clicks to get a filled Rectangle
- mumbisChungo 6y ago
  Number 2 took me from using paint constantly to just using photoshop instead.
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  1. Use shift+click.
- unholythree 6y ago
  I still find myself trying to do #1 frequently
- forgotpwd16 6y ago
  1. On latest Windows version I am on now it works as the classic paint. 2. On classic paint you set colors > rectangle > select filling (w/ outline or w/o). On new paint is set colors > rectangle > fill > select filling > outline > select outline. So 1 or 3 more if you want to remove the outline.
userbinator 6y ago
I immediately searched for the XP version the first time I encountered this extremely frustrating behaviour: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-desktop/windows-10-paint-and-the-line-tool/0799e78c-46d3-4caa-8c6e-5c8ad4c2ddf1 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10...
- airstrike 6y ago
  I honestly would prefer if the post was left unanswered than having to read shit like > Hi, > Thanks for the update on the issue. > We have tested the same with the latest Windows updates installed on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. > As suggested, I would recommend sharing this as a feedback on the Feedback app of Windows 10. > Do let us know if you face any Windows related issues in future. We will be glad to assist you. > Good Day!
  - marcoperaza 6y ago
    That whole forum is a dumpster fire. When a search takes me there, I brace myself to read a poorly-written, incorrect, dismissive answer. Nine times out of ten, the questioner is clearly more knowledgeable about the problem than the person answering it.
alternatetwo 6y ago
Win Vista and later paint replaces the palette of a 256 color bitmap with a completely different one upon saving, to name a major and breaking difference. I grabbed the paint.exe from an old XP and it works absolutely fine, even on 7 and probably 10.
badsectoracula 6y ago
No, it is a very different application. For example when you draw something, like a rectangle, and then you try to draw something else over it, it instead moves the rectangle - failing to do the most basic task: being a paint program. It does have some nice features, like the premade shapes and brushes, but those could have been added to the previous MS Paint application without breaking its UX.

umvi 6y ago

> I miss this version of Paint Well you are in luck: https://archive.org/details/MSPaintWinXP https://archive.org/details/MSPaintWinXP I use this all the time on my Windows 10 box. Just download, rename to "mspaintxp.exe" and put it in C:\Windows\System32. Optionally update Paint shortcut to point to that one so when you type "Paint" in start menu that's the new default.

microcolonel 6y ago
If you're looking to run it with Wine, you'll also want a copy of the IA32 version of mfc42u.dll. added: totally necessary proof https://qui.suis.je/drop/peakfun.png https://qui.suis.je/drop/peakfun.png
- grapeli23 6y ago
  It also works in the browser under JSLinux in Wine (requires mfc42u.dll). https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=alpine-x86-xwin.cfg&mem=256&graphic=1 https://bellard.org/jslinux/vm.html?url=alpine-x86-xwin.cfg&...
notJim 6y ago
In fact, you don't need to go to all this trouble if you don't want to. Someone has made a web-based version of paint you can use right from your browser, even if you don't have Windows installed. Link: https://chowderman.github.io/xp-paint.html https://chowderman.github.io/xp-paint.html
- edjrage 6y ago
  That's awesome! Someone should post this on HN.
  - Piisamirotta 6y ago
    Indeed! So we could discuss about it!

MayeulC 6y ago

Kolourpain is better. It does transparency, fill with a configurable distance, and supports more file formats. Other than these, it's quite similar :) https://kde.org/applications/graphics/org.kde.kolourpaint https://kde.org/applications/graphics/org.kde.kolourpaint http://www.kolourpaint.org/screenshots.html http://www.kolourpaint.org/screenshots.html (that website could use an update...)

Supermancho 6y ago
Photoshop is better, or should I say https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/ Is Kolourpaint available as a website I can visit right now? Lots of editors are "better" from a feature standpoint. That's not the feature that is relevant to the discussion.
- zapzupnz 6y ago
  > That's not the feature that is relevant to the discussion. Not to the thread overall, but it is relevant to this thread in particular. GP didn't mention any specifics regarding whether or not the editor is available online; they merely spoke about Paint's simplicity relative to everything else.
- MayeulC 6y ago
  I'm sorry if I should have been more nuanced. Lack of transparency support was my number 1 pet peeve back with mspaint. Kolourpaint's scope and interface are similar. It can be found in most distributions'packages, and on flathub. Looks like nobody bothered to package it for windows, though, which is a shame.
- forgotpwd16 6y ago
  Wow, Photopea runs extremely smoothly. On my old laptop it runs better than native image editors.

m-p-3 6y ago

If you need just a bit more functionality, I find Paint.NET to be quite good while not too complex.

Firehawke 6y ago
Yep. It's not at the level of Photoshop but it does a pretty good chunk of the intermediate-level features that you might need for more complex projects (e.g. layers)
wazanator 6y ago
Paint.net is still one of the very first things I install on a fresh Windows install. It's simple to use but provides enough depth if you want it without feeling overwhelming on opening. Gimps interface has come a long way but it's still not as user friendly as paint.net I feel.

pubby 6y ago

Check out mtPaint. It's very similar to old school paint, and works on Linux too. http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/ http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/

sedatk 6y ago

I find Paint.NET excellent for both basic scenarios and advanced ones too (it supports layers, effects etc). Strongly recommended. https://getpaint.net https://getpaint.net It's free but it's also available in Microsoft Store as a paid product, which gets automatic updates as a small extra and mostly works as a donation towards the developer.

akersten 6y ago
I love Paint .NET, but I wince every time I go to their website (which is not paint.net) to download it: the download button[1] gives me strong "clicking this will give you a shareware virus from 2005" vibe. It is also very sketchy that their website (getpaint.net) redirects to another site (dotpdn.com) for the actual download page. I power through these feelings and download it anyway, knowing what wonderful software awaits on the other side, but it's really hard to shake those thoughts. [1]: https://imgur.com/a/pfVCnLN https://imgur.com/a/pfVCnLN
- DCKing 6y ago
  I recommend everyone on HN using Windows to use Chocolatey and Chocolatey GUI to install their software. Chocolatey is a package manager / "app store" for FOSS and other free-to-install software on Windows. Downloading random installers was always flawed, but it's not getting any better. Chocolatey is the best you can get as a Homebrew/Homebrew Cask equivalent on Windows, and even if it takes some getting used to is so much better than navigating the web for installers.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - swinglock 6y ago
    These days I prefer https://scoop.sh/ https://scoop.sh/. Chocolatey is fine but it would sometimes cause problems which I frankly don't remember. With scoop I've had no issues.
    - 6y ago

Exorus18 6y ago

Yup, during college I even created electrical schematics in MS Paint during one course, nobody believed it was done using it :) Although I must admit creating schematics in CAD software is more sane ;)

arrrg 6y ago

I’m always perplexed by this. Maybe I lack the artistic talent? Paint could never cover any of my use cases. For that it was always too much about … well … painting … which is something I just don’t need on a day to day basis. The painting focus seems completely misguided to most of the typical use cases I can imagine. My quintessential perfect tool is always the Preview App on macOS: You can add simple shapes, arrows and text to any images. You can rotate, crop and resize images. You can reorder, rotate, split and merge PDF documents. That’s all very well tailored to most common use cases. In terms of image editing I guess you can do all that with Paint but it seems clumsy to me. Not really fit for that purpose. And if I don’t want to mark something up but create something new (which will typically heavily rely on text even if it’s more visual, like a birthday invitation) the text editing is too weak to get anywhere really useful, so for that I would rather use some kind of either text editor or layouting program.

willis936 6y ago
Contemporary paint is much better. XP paint was missing some of the most basic and essential features of a pixel editor. Without a proper and simple cropping interface it’s little more than an aesthetic setpiece.

artifact_44 6y ago

photopea.com

asddubs 6y ago

kolourpaint is the exact same thing as windows xp paint. part of kde, but you can also find windows builds online

Macha 6y ago

Well it could crop as well. Then I'd give you 90%.

voldacar 6y ago

> This version of MS Paint is like the peak example of covering 99% of basic use cases while being incredibly simple to use. At some point Microsoft just forgot how to make software like this - sometime between 2005 and 2010 I think. OSes no longer come with simple, lightweight tools that are unsophisticated and just do what you want