Windows Notepad is removed from the Microsoft Store

Microsoft pulls Notepad from the Store, making it a bundled app again. Microsoft was about to update it independently from the OS, but this plan has been cancelled.

In recent 20H1 builds, Notepad, along with Paint and Wordpad, were listed under Optional features.

Having Notepad in the Store not only allowed Microsoft to update it frequently, but also allowed users to uninstall it. According to the company, this could allow them to quickly respond to issues and feedback for Notepad, and to deliver new features to app users much faster.

However, the situation has changed with Windows 10 Build 19035. The official announcement states:

Thank you for all the feedback you provided on the Store version of Notepad. At this time, we’ve decided not to roll this out to customers. Insiders may notice some changes as we remove this change from this build:

• If you pinned Notepad to your Taskbar or Start menu, you will need to re-pin after you upgrade to this new build.
• If you had certain file types set to open in Notepad by default, you will see a prompt when you try to open files of that type again and will need to re-select Notepad.

So, if you had pinned Notepad to the taskbar, or set it as the default editor for some unknown extension, you will have to repeat the procedure(s).

Notepad is one of the classic Windows apps that had seen updates rarely. However, starting with Windows 10 Build 17661, Notepad has received plenty of new features and improvements. Now it can handle large text files without issues, comes with performance improvements, and includes the following new options:

• Unix Line Endings Support
• Search with Bing from Notepad
• Change Text Zoom Level/Wrap around search
• An indicator for any unsaved content.

Personally, I don't think that Notepad removal from the Store will have any negative side. What about you? What are your thoughts about this change?

Support us

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options: