4 ms·
I'm always sad to see applications go (especially if the recommended alternative is a paid software), but did that thing ever work properly? In the past decade
by not_your_vase 3y ago
I'm always sad to see applications go (especially if the recommended alternative is a paid software), but did that thing ever work properly? In the past decade I used Windows only when someone held a gun to my head, but before that I remember that WordPad always messed up all documents I have ever opened: weird page and line breaks, picture and textbox formatting all over the place, and saving a document was a good way to prevent future reading.
- davnn 3y agoNobody uses WordPad, nobody wants to improve WordPad, WordPad will be sunset.
- smackeyacky 3y agoI always figured this was by design. Microsoft needed a GUI word processor that was free to stifle competition in the new "windows software" market, but not good enough to upset their Word business. Good job WordPad - one of the flag bearers of Microsofts anti-competitive business practices.
- wvenable 3y agoWordpad was basically just a tech demo for the Rich text control in Windows.
- lemper 3y agocorrect. wordpad is one of peak microsoft's assholery and its death should be celebrated. too bad, it won't help libreoffice's adoption.
- hulitu 3y agoCan you elaborate ? It was a very good RTF editor.
- canucker2016 3y agoMicrosoft Write (which supported RTF) was included in Windows 1.0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Write https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Write For Win95, the new included-in-the-box email client required a text editor which supported multiple fonts, colours, font styles, et al. But Microsoft Write code was not written to be modular and cross-platform (much of the Win95 email client code would also run on the Macintosh, for Mac OS System 7.x). So the RichEdit windows control was created. Wordpad.exe is a thin wrapper around the RichEdit control, like Notepad.exe is a thin wrapper around the text edit control.
- canucker2016 3y agoWindows 1.0 was released in 1985 November. Microsoft Word for Windows was released in 1989 November, four years after Windows 1.0 included Microsoft Write. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft_Word
- archo 3y agoRemember, the DOS MS Word competitor; WordPerfect : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPerfect And the later WordPerfect for Windows was competition that MS was keen to kill.
- j16sdiz 3y agoNotepad.exe have lots of improvement in past 10 years. A major revamp in 2022 It is no longer a "thin wrapper".
- hulitu 3y agoI noticed that it needs more than 3 seconds to start on my work laptop. Truly an improvement. /s
- almostnormal 3y agoSearching in notepad no longer opens a separate window but squeezes the search input in between text lines, and while creating space breaks the display. Searching highlights but doesn't move the cursor, losing the location found when closing search. It's unusuable now.
- 13of40 3y agoSeems like there were three options: 1. Ship Word with Windows and not get paid for it, even though they had hundreds of engineers working on it. 2. Ship no word processor with Windows, and make the end user find one on their own. 3. Ship a basic one and let the user upgrade to Word if they needed something more. At the time with option 2, it's not like you're going to hit google and download some FOSS solution - you would need to go to the computer store and pay $200 for something in a box off the shelf. I'm thinking option 3 was a good middle ground, and a win-win for MS and the customer.
- bragr 3y agoMicrosoft had a cheaper office suite that they sold as a middle ground. I remember the "poor" kids in highschool couldn't edit their papers in certain ways at home and had to do some things on school computers instead. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works
- xattt 3y ago> I remember the "poor" kids in highschool couldn't edit their papers in certain ways at home The irony was that Microsoft included Microsoft Money in the Works suite, likely to give an aspiration of saving and making enough in order to upgrade to the Office suite.
- phonon 3y agoMS Works was supposed to fill that role...[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Works [0]
- qlkjwenf 3y ago[flagged]
- hulitu 3y agoWordpad was able to open RTF files much better than Word. Word will mess up formating.
- Encrypt-Keeper 3y agoThat was Notepad, which will continue to live on. WordPad was the one that DIDN'T screw everything up.