Ask most designers and artists what their go-to creative software is, and the answer's unlikely to surprise you. It's almost certain to be Photoshop CC (opens in new tab), Affinity Photo or Procreate, with perhaps some weird outliers plumping for the likes of GIMP.
But for some people the venerable Microsoft Paint is still number one, and when Microsoft recently suggested it was going to be taking their beloved digital art package away, these loyal folk were decidedly upset.
A product alert has appeared in MS Paint of late, warning users that Paint will soon be moving to the Microsoft Store. The warning goes on to explain that it will still be free to download once it moves there, but that's not the point; tradition demands that Paint comes as part of the Windows package.
It's an emotive subject, but it seems that good old Paint has received at least a partial reprieve, as this tweet from Microsoft Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc confirms:
Yes, MSPaint will be included in 1903. It'll remain included in Windows 10 for now.April 23, 2019
It's not perhaps the most reassuring of reassurances; LeBlanc is merely confirming that Paint will be be in the next build of Windows 10, and while he says remain in Windows 10 for now, that still suggests that Paint may yet get the plug pulled on it further down the line; after all, this isn't the first time (opens in new tab) that Paint has been let off the hook.
It's easy to see why there's still so much love for MS Paint, 33 years after it originally appeared in Windows 1.0. It might be basic as hell, lacking virtually all the features we take for granted in Photoshop, but for many artists it was their first encounter with any kind of creative software, and an emotional bond like that is tough to break.
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Even if you haven't used it in decades – which is fair enough because, let's be honest, it's an utter pain to use and requires hours of intense concentration to produce anything that doesn't look like pixel art (opens in new tab) scrawled by an angry toddler – it's nice to know that MS Paint is still there and giving some people their creative fix. Just look at some of the recent work created with it:
It would be a shame to see it go, especially as there are much more useless apps bundled with Windows 10 that take up a lot more storage.
And while there are people still willing to spend many, many hours producing work like the examples shown here with MS Paint, it would be positively spiteful to remove it from Windows 10. Let's hope Microsoft sees sense and ring-fences it for good.
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