Microsoft is axing this seven-year-old Windows app

By Willow Roberts Published August 12, 2024

Someone using Paint 3D on a tablet with a stylus. — Microsoft

As spotted by Windows Central, Paint 3D will stop receiving updates and be removed from the Microsoft Store on November 4 of this year. Although it was once intended as a replacement for the classic Paint program, Paint 3D will be outlived by its predecessor and some of its best features have been transferred to the older app instead.

However, anyone who downloads Paint 3D before the cutoff date should be able to carry on using it past November.

Recommended Videos

First released in 2017, Paint 3D was meant to be an exciting upgrade for Paint users and enthusiasts that brought a modernized UI, layers, PNG support, transparency, and 3D modeling features. And people didn’t hate it — but what they did hate was Microsoft saying it wasplanning to deprecate the old Paint program. After the internet made its dissatisfaction clear, Microsoft posted on its blog, saying it had decided to keep Paint and move it to the Microsoft Store where anyone could download it for free.

But why do people still love the old Paint app so much? Well, part of it is nostalgia, and part of it is ease of use. Practically anyone who has ever used a computer in the past 40 years knows how to use MS Paint — and some of those people are not interested in learning anything else. The old Paint app is also noticeably faster and more responsive than Paint 3D, and that’s an important factor for a lot of people.

Eventually, Microsoft began giving in to Paint’s popularity, giving it some of Paint 3D’s features in a 2023 update, including layers, transparency, and background removal. It then received AI-powered tools for Copilot+ PCs, allowing people to generate images with specific art styles directly from the app.

Now, with this news about Paint 3D’s demise, it’s clear that Microsoft has officially given up on trying to replace Paint or make it irrelevant. There are still a lot of features Paint 3D has that Paint doesn’t, so perhaps there could be more updates coming in the future — but the whole 3D part of Paint 3D never really caught on anyway, so Microsoft can probably just forget about that.

Topics

Computing Writer

Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…

Computing

Proton VPN has a brand new Windows app — plus widgets on mobile

Embargo: April 3, 3AM PT. Proton VPN Windows app on monitor.

Proton VPN has launched a new Windows app today, redesigning the look and simplifying the experience for users. As common a tool as VPNs are now, they're still quite complex and it's common for users to ignore features they're not familiar with.

With this new redesign, Proton hopes to encourage users to try out advanced features like Kill Switch, port forwarding, and split tunneling. If you're wondering what these three features do -- Kill Switch instantly blocks network traffic if you lose your VPN connection, making sure your IP address isn't temporarily exposed. Port forwarding helps you securely connect to your home network from another location or give someone else access, and split tunneling lets you choose which apps use your VPN and which don't.

Computing

Windows’ infamous blue screen of death is changing

The blue screen of death in Windows.

The infamous Blue Screen of Death — oft-shortened to BSOD — is changing, and many fans aren't happy with its new look. While seeing the BSOD was never a good thing, the long-time version displayed a fair amount of information regarding the cause of the crash or error. And in a way, sentimentality also plays a role. The BSOD has been a part of Windows since 1990, although it has changed its look a couple of times over the years.

Now it looks like the BSOD is changing to the...well, the BSOD. The black screen of death. In Windows 11 24H2, the iconic frowning emoji is gone, replaced with a much more straightforward screen: a black background with the words, "Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart." It has a progress counter beneath, and a few lines at the bottom detailing the stop codes as well as what failed.

Computing

Windows 11 users outsmart Microsoft once again with new local account trick

A screenshot of the Windows 11 Microsoft Account setup page

A newly discovered trick allows Windows 11 users to bypass Microsoft’s online account requirement during setup, raising questions around user control and privacy. The workaround, shared by X user @witherornot1337, lets users set up Windows 11 with a local account instead of being forced to log in with a Microsoft account.

This follows previous similar methods, highlighting an ongoing cat-and-mouse game between Microsoft and privacy-conscious users. Microsoft has been increasingly pushing online accounts as a mandatory requirement for Windows 11, particularly in Home and Pro editions. This change has frustrated many users who prefer local accounts for greater privacy and independence from Microsoft’s ecosystem.