Microsoft Paint to be given death sentence after 32 years

Microsoft Paint, that dependable stalwart of every Windows computer you have ever used, is about to be killed off.

Part of the Windows operating system since version 1.0 was released back in 1985, Paint was always there for you when images needed a quick crop, or something needed to be crudely obscured.

Paint was often outshone by other free alternatives, but in the right hands it could be a powerful tool - as demonstrated by the popular Jim'll Paint It Twitter account.

But Paint's days are numbered, as Microsoft has said it will be banished to Windows Purgatory - also known as the 'deprecated' list - when the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update arrives later this year

Apps on this list are no longer upgraded and await their removal with a future Windows update. The death sentence, detailed by Microsoft, was first spotted by the Guardian.

Being on the deprecated list means Paint is now an application which is "not in active development and might be removed in future releases".

Rolling out this autumn, the update will see 11 other features and programmes put on death row, while a further 11 will be killed off immediately. These include Outlook Express, Reader, Reading List and 3D Builder.

The crude, mouse-drawn writing was on the wall for Paint when Microsoft introduced Paint 3D in April 2017, a programme installed alongside the original and with an emphasis on working with three-dimensional objects instead of the simple 2D tasks Paint was best known for.