- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
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This is very upsetting to me–more as a point of principle than in fact–but I appreciate that it doesn’t bother younger generations at all. I just had a small argument with my 11 year old about how not-a-big-deal-who-cares this is, and it basically ended with us agreeing to disagree since it’ll be his problem and his kids’ problem.
And the problem is normalizing the notion that an OS doesn’t need to include a non-subscription word processor. The entire point of this move is to shift the OS Overton Window in favor of consumers accepting and expecting that features like word processors, spreadsheets, etc., should be installed separately and paid for on a subscription basis despite previous iterations of the same software being feature complete on install and purchased at a set, non-recurring fee.
WordPad hasn’t been anybody’s first choice for a word processor in years, but it was included with Windows and did the bare minimum for unsophisticated users. Now we’re entering an era in which those users will as a matter of course buy off-the-shelf computers that come pre-installed without WordPad, but rather with a trial of Office Fuck-You-Pay-Me Edition. Those users may well discover that after their first six months with their new computer (that has made Microsoft more money selling their data than they paid for it), they suddenly get a pop-up informing them that their trial is up and MS wants $99.99 to release the documents they’re holding hostage.
It’s a step backwards for consumers in general, so even for the sophisticated of us who are least likely to be personally affected by this change, there’s definitely cause for alarm.
I get where you’re coming from but I think you’re overstating the impact in this day and age. If this had been 1995 it’d be a big deal. Now it’s rediculously easy to install any alternative you like for free.
Libre Office is an entire free fully features office suite.
I’m less bothered about removing WordPad than I am about Microsoft advertising and pre-installing it’s products in Windows - they force Edge on people, they push OneDrive and preinstall a preview of Office. That’s the real problem - not losing WordPad.
At one point Anti-Trust / Anti-monopoly regulators globally punished Microsoft for pushing Internet Explorer to consumers and for a long time in Europe had to offer a choice of Browsers to download on new Windows installs. Now it’s allowed to get away with abusing it’s dominant position to force it’s products on consumers.
Does liber office make .docx files and export to pdf?
Yes.
It wouldn’t be as good as everyone says if it didn’t.
Yes, and recent versions of MS Word can also read odt, so no need for docx just to work with Word users.
I built a new PC two months ago and it’s the first time I didn’t get Office. Libre Office has everything I need and it’s free.
Advertise and push Foss substitutes like libreoffice.
could go a step further and bin windows altogether.
granted, it’s a big step for most.
Love Linux, love windows. 'ate mac, simple as.
Be part of the 3%! Join today!
Likely scenario, honestly.
I really don’t worry about it, though.
Not to brag, but it doesn’t bother me.
Understand, there is a solution.
X marks the spot.(Yeah, I know, that’s kind of stupid. But it seemed funny in my head.)
I can’t read you
I’ve given everything, but you seem distant
I can’t feel you
Your heart is somewhere else, it’s missin’
What if I read back to you?
You have a piece, but there’s two
Someone please get this reference.
It’s too bad Linux isn’t more normalized. For those very simple users (and for the more sophisticated) Linux is probably much better than Windows at this point.
No ads, free software, updates can be very simple and stable, less security issues.
Then they ask their grandson or work it dept what they should do and both will answer libre office is free
Why in gods name don’t you use libre office. It’s so much better than word and excel for rent
Because libre office is not compatible with many others. You can open it sure but there’s no guarantee that opening .doc or .docx will have broken formatting. Not good for those in the academia or workplace where formatting are strictly enforce.
Absolute bullshit. Microsoft moved to the Open Office document standard after they were forced to and Libre is renown for its ability to open Microsoft’s documents without issue. I have opened countless personally.
Do yourself a favour and get off the junk office suite that hasn’t received a functional update in the last 10 years that wasn’t to improve its rent charging capacity.
I disagree. I don’t think a rich text editor should be part of the OS as it’s not there to operate the computer. An OS should be the tools to run applications and manage your computer. There are a bunch of apps which are so small that it makes sense to include them - like a calculator and text editor, but everything else should be optional.
There should be an OS out there for you which doesn’t come with a rich text editor. [If there is ever a time to mention GNU+Linux in a MS thread then now is that time.] For most people however, not including it is a needless barrier to entry.
I used it for my damn resume because I didn’t have word, didn’t need office. I also liked it because when friends asked me to review a document I could open word documents with it, I would do that sometimes even when I had office because WordPad opened faster and I didn’t need perfect formatting.
I think it is safe to say that your 11 year old is factually wrong lol. But it is okay that they don’t understand how bad this is because the concept of how multiple businesses have switched to subscription based models even in places we wouldn’t expect, like a monthly subscription allowing already installed hardware in your car to actually function, cause it’s just 11 year Olds don’t have a great concept of bills and money at that level yet. I say wait for their first complaint of it as an adult and then put on your carefully choreographed and practiced “I told you so” dance
Okay kidding aside I think it is absolutely wonderful this is something you didn’t just have a conversation with your young kid about but that you had to agree to disagree, you sound like a fantastic parent who actually fosters a relationship with their kid. And probably only rarely says I told you so.
Honestly, what is the point of Wordpad when you have Notepad and Word?
Not all of us have Word, and Notepad doesn’t have rich text or the ability to open .doc files.
LibreOffice is free
And huge. And bloated, if you only need simple functionality.
Abiword is pretty nice and not too bloated from what I remember
Abiword is FOSS and would be my choice over Word anyway.
It has been literally twenty years since I last heard any mention of Abiword!
I probably haven’t thought if it for like 10 years myself but this post reminded me of it. I remember maybe 15 years ago using a portable version of it on a USB drive, and it was amazing.
Honestly I’m not too bummed, especially with open-source solutions like Notepad++, but it’s the end of an era! Also, Word is paid, and so Windows not having a built in free RTF editor is notable
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Also try editing unix or Mac line endings in notepad
Easy way to distribute rich text documents to users without them having to install anything.
I use notepad super often as a copy edit paste aid. It loads in a millisecond.
lightweight notes with margins
WordPad was a fast and efficient way to view doc files without loading into LibreOffice or any other office suite, or to make rich text documents quickly. But alas, we have to go to the cloud for our notes now…
of course, gotta push more people to that godawful office 365 crap somehow
Seriously, the market share of Wordpad users is so small Microsoft absolutely does not care
To be replaced by a link to WordPad Bing AI Edition
Ew. I’m annoyed by how correct you likely are.
Subscription-based, like freaking Solitaire
Am completely expecting this to be due to falling office sales or fear that people will realize they don’t need expensive Office every few years when WordPad has 90% of functionality for daily use.
I expect this will make a lot of people very angry since I know many users of WordPad.
LibreOffice is what those people need.
I personally like the look and feel of FreeOffice better. Fairly enough, I haven’t used Libre in many years, but it always felt kind of clunky and when I tried Free it was very comfortable and familiar to use, as a lifetime Word-er.
LibreOffice is where it’s at, for sure.
I actually very much doubt wordpad has hurt office sales.
Seriously. It’s insane to think this is a move to increase office market share
I dont think I know any person who uses Wordpad. Most probably dont even know that it exists, hidden away somewhere in the starting menu…
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People still sleep on Excel. Nothing else touches it, and your finance department would riot if IT tried any of its “replacements.”
They changed their licensing and specifically for robot users so I suspect it’s to funnel those users into licenses which is a lot more than consumers.
This place really hates MS. Can’t believe some of the comments here.
Yeah it’s really strange. I’m not a fan of MS by any means, but I’ve found myself making so many pro-MS comments on Lemmy just because the userbase leans so heavily pro-Linux and anti-MS.
Lemmy and other Fediverse sites tend to attract folks who prefer FOSS. Early Reddit was that way too!
It’s not just preferring FOSS, though – it’s as if people have to publicly perform their hatred of Microsoft.
thats what anger does usually
Pillorying Microsoft has been a FOSS tradition for decades
And then getting downvoted by people who just disagree with your opinion. I’m one of the Reddit refugees so I don’t know if we brought that with us or Lemmy was like that before but it’s sad to see.
It shouldn’t be that strange. Linux nerds are a huge Lemmy demographic.
Much more up on new technology, FOSS, and privacy issues etc. than the general population. Good fit for Lemmy.
Apple is a LOT worse than Microsoft these days
MS has a history which informs what their fututre actions are likely to be. If you can’t believe the comments here perhaps you have not heard that history. If you have then consider that lemmy is free software and so you’re more likely to find that way of thinking here.
My goto for distrust of MS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
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My goto for distrust of MS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
There’s not a single reference on that page that’s less than 20 years old. Yes, Microsoft did some anticompetitive stuff back when Bill Gates was CEO, but it’s absurd to suggest that that still “informs what their future actions are likely to be”. A lot has changed since the 1990s.
What has changed which means they should be forgiven or trusted during these 20 years? What does a Linux subsystem for Windows prove? They want users to run Linux apps in Windows so their users will be less tempted to not use Windows… so they can add more anti features for profit.
I guess you are completely unaware of the fact that a huge chunk of the Azure infrastructure runs on linux now. MS also knows that in the enterprise space, companies use linux in their server infrastructure also, so their employees need to be able to work in linx as well. MS has versions of SQL and I believe also exchange that run on linux. WSL isn’t just about appease neckbeard wannabes.
I don’t understand why MS using Linux gives you trust in MS. MS leaked documents (over 20 years ago too) showed they considered free software a serious competitior (including Linux). Makes sense they would use it, so what?
I was working in the industry like I do now when that happened. I was disappointed the antitrust trial didn’t break up MS into three companies. Things have changed there. I guess we should dig into your past and hold everything you’ve did 20 years ago against you?
Ballmer was the driving force behind that mentality and he’s been gone from MS for a very long time.
Would breaking up big tech software companies have the same effect as it does with regular companies? I can’t shake the idea it won’t really work. People don’t want the 2nd best free (gratis) mapping software.
I guess we should dig into your past and hold everything you’ve did 20 years ago against you?
If one has not tried to sincerely make amends or doesn’t appear to have changed then it’s resonable take past actions into consideration?? I still see Microsoft making anti-consumer moves and they ain’t making Windows free software (free as in freedom).
Not to mention the amount of people who think this is about notepad.
A broken clock can be right twice a day. Unless someone keeps playing with the dials.
As a former user, and an hardcore fanboy, I loved MS and Windows. They made computers accessible for the general public. The OS and the office suite were great. The sheer amount of available software for it was phenomenal. They even decided to publish games, which meant quality!
Until they decided to break things.
XP was a great OS, Vista wasn’t. Then 7 was back to being good just for 8 to be not as good. Then Cortana and Edge and the push for cloud computing.
What worked, worked well and was actually useful was changed, removed, phased out…
GNU/Linux is not without its dramas and difficulties but we can expect a good degree of continuity between each version of a software (I’m looking a you, Gnome!). And if we’re that hell bent on having that specific specific piece of software or OS setup, well, we can.
MS by contrast just chucks the good things out and doesn’t even let them floating around as something users may add to their system.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
PowerToys is alive and well, and updated regularly. More features now too.
PowerToys is very much live and available for download. I use it daily.
Does someone remembers the PowerToys collection?
That name rings a bell. My username is from “Tweak Tools 95”, which I think was a part of that or something.
Edit: Also Windows has a long history of alternating good and bad versions.
- 98 - good
- ME - bad
- XP - good
- Vista - bad
- 7 - good
- 8 - bad
- 10 - good
- 11 - bad
In theory, the next version of Windows should be fairly good, or at least an improvement on 11. However I worry that MS will buck the trend now - particularly as they’ve pivoted away from software sales to software as a service (with additional data collection because fuck paying users).
Unpopular opinion: Win 11 works well for me, and is visually better than Win 10. Although it’s a fairly recent PC. Although if they keep pushing more telemetry and ads, I’m moving over to Ubuntu.
Its the small things on Windows 11 for me. Like the “more options” section on the right click… that must have been added just to annoy people. It’s where all the good options are.
Otherwise, seems to run fine.
That’s a big issue for me, though. I really value being able to do simple tasks quickly with minimal effort and the fewest clicks, it allows me to focus my attention on the actual thing I’m trying to do. Clicking through multiple submenus unnecessarily infuriates me.
Why does everyone keep forgetting 2000 and 8.1?
2000 was mostly NT and business stuff (which later became XP), and 8.1 by definition isn’t really a new version.
Actually, 8.1 is, or at least they market it like a new version just like Windows 7.
I mean, not many people are in the loving Microsoft camp. Tolerate maybe.
I would have never thought so many people would be pissed about Wordpad. Fucking Wordpad! It’s terrible! And Ms isn’t killing it to get office subscriptions because no one fucking uses it! They’re killing it because it isn’t worth the effort to maintain. There are so many free alternatives that are better.
Only thing I used it for was when older versions of Notepad couldn’t handle larger text files. Now it can. So, no loss to me. Notepad going away would suck, that does at least get occasional use although Notepad++ is far superior.
Notepad++ can’t handle as big files for some reason. At work we have files that can reach 5-600 MB, and NP++ can’t always open those, but notepad handles then with no problem.
I had the same problem but noticed that I was using the 32 bit version of notepad++, installed the 64 bits instead and had no problems with large files
That might actually be something to bring up with IT…
I’ve opened 4GB files with notepad++ before. Sure, it takes several minutes (I basically have to go away and do something else, or leave it loading in the background) but it gets there, eventually.
NP++ straight up tells us it’s too big to be opened…
That sounds backwards… I occasionally have to open log files of 1 gig or more, and notepad++ gets sluggish, but is usable, while notepad just hangs until I kill it…
Someone suggested that we might have the 32-bit version, and that that might be the problem. I have no way of checking for a few months though, since I’m on parental leave until January. Because our NP++ just says that the files are too big to be opened. Sidenote: Sometimes it can open files that are a bit bigger, and sometimes only a bit smaller… So it’s not a hard limit that is the same at all times.
Klogg. I always avoid Microsoft when possible.
Would if I could, but work is pretty strict with what we can use.
It’s a portable app and runs in use space. So no install. I’m in the same boat with work. Open source apps are great for just running an app.
Then it will depend on if we are allowed to download it at all. Can’t be sure about that.
Genuinely curious—why would someone choose to use notepad++ over something like VSCode in 2023?
I can’t say I’ve used n++ in over a decade when I switched to sublime around 2010, moved again to VSCode about 5 years ago
N++ can search for a string in a directory full of files, that’s what I use it for. Also helpful for showing unprintable characters like linefeeds or changing bit order mode, I’m not sure vs code can do any of that.
For writing code, though, I do use vs code
IIRC you can do both of those with VSCode, I think even without any extensions too!
The search sidebar has include and exclude fields for directories to search in.
For showing unprintable characters, I think it’s split into two settings: one for whitespace one for control characters like null and bell
I wasn’t aware of that, I’ll have to check it out. Thank you.
NP++ is more lightweight and has some useful stuff builtin and easier to justify to IT dept to than a full IDE 🤷
Personally I prefer pycharm and Atom for my home needs.
Justifying it to IT makes a lot of sense actually. Particularly if you need extensions. I’m lucky I get admin on my laptop where I work
Interesting you’re using atom, actually! Is it still getting much love? I assumed development would go by the wayside once Microsoft bought GitHub a few years ago (as VSCode is almost an identical product)
Yeah it’s on my personal machine, I use it alongside pycharm but it’s (atom) not my main IDE, I keep it because of a few things it does. I disagree vscode is the same, it’s a poorer implementation of pycharm IMHO. Just my opinion though everyone is different in workspace.
I’m interested in what differs from atom about VSCode in your opinion.
Wasn’t VSCode a fork of atom originally?edit: apparently not! When I was picking between the two about 5 years ago, they seemed almost identical to meI’m personally not a big fan of heavy IDEs like the jetbrains products, so VSCode being lighter than pycharm (or any of the IDEA products) is a bonus to me.
Look at Atom community. Speed to load is night and day.
For me, Vscode feels like a cheaper pycharm which is my primary IDE and wouldn’t change as I’ve tried vscode as an alt and it wasn’t good enough for how I work.
Fair play, everyone’s different, I work with another guy who swears by the jetbrains stuff, but it just seems very clunky to me every time I’ve tried it.
I’ll have to give atom another look then, though I’d say VSCode starts in about a second on my machine, so startup time alone probably wouldn’t be a reason for me to switch
They must not be able to spy on people thru it
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Notepad is, in fact, under active development. They recently upgraded find and replace so it works 90% of the time instead of 30% and added some annoying restore session by default feature. not to mention tabs
I’d never had an issue with find and replace, but then I tend to install notepad++ straight away.
I interviewed at Microsoft decades ago and found a bug in notepad during my interview when they gave me a laptop and asked me how I would test notepad.
Their faces indicated that this was not supposed to be a productive exercise.
did you get the job?
it will deprecate WordPad with a future Windows update as it’s no longer under active development
It doesn’t need “active development” because it is perfect the way it is. Unix/Linux has tons of useful programs that haven’t been in active development for 40-50 years.
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I haven’t been using Wordpad for 20+ years. Notepad could do everything it does already. Then, you also have Firefox’s built-in inspect to tinker with code on the fly.
Honestly, this blows. WordPad fills a niche between a full blown text editor and notepad. Most of my random daily notes use WordPad still when not OneNote.
Notepad++ was a good alternative when I was running Windows
That’s an alternative to Notepad, not for Wordpad that has basic word processing formatting.
Wow someone was using this?
I recently started using a markdown based note taking program called Joplin, that might be useful for you
Check out Obsidian ;)
I love obsidian too!
I don’t get why they aren’t retiring notepad instead. WordPad is just as light and fast while having more features.
Not that I really care, I never touch either ever since MS basically stopped developing them 25 years ago. Notepad++, atom, etc, there are so many superb lightweight editors out there.
Probably don’t use Atom though seeing as it was sunset at the end of 2022
I don’t like Apple but they ship their devices with everything a basic user needs and if a high quality, completely for free. When you get a MacBook you don’t need to worry about finding and downloading an external app for almost anything - from viewing any kind of file, to basic photo and video editing, to document processing, etc. And they don’t track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
Except for a calculator on iPads.
Indeed
And they don’t track every minute thing you do
You sure about that? I just bought my mom a new iPad Air yesterday and the setup process was maddeningly privacy invading. Name, address, and phone number just to install anything from the Apple store. Both me and my mom, who’s not tech savvy at all, thought it was crazy the amount of info we had to put in just to get a usable device.
and act like malware to try to make you use their products.
There was also so many preloaded garbage apps installed by default. Why are apps like Measure there? Yes when I want to measure something…I reach for an iPad…instead of…you know…a tape measure… Just because they’re first party apps doesn’t make this okay. Also, Apple’s ecosystem is famous for vendor lock-in.
They may not be as blatant about it as Google is, but they’re every bit as bad tbh.
" And they don’t track every minute thing you do and act like malware to try to make you use their products."
LOL ok
Lol overpriced locked down PoS os
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They weren’t investigated for antitrust for baking stuff into the OS - it was for monopolizing various sectors and strong arming users and competitors. They’re allowed to have their own browser preinstalled, they just have to let you switch easily and remove it etc.
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What’s the MacBook equivalent of MS Paint? Open it, paste from clipboard, and then do a simple crop/edit? I was looking to do this the other day and nothing seemed to work.
I don’t think Macs are as batteries included as some people think.
You can do that in Preview.
As long as they leave Notepad. I use it almost daily.
I used it for the past 3 month at work writing in Markdown, just bd aide of how fast and responsive it was to open and close different papers
I feel like even Microsoft would not be crazy enough to remove notepad.
RIP WordPad coders.
Time to switch to a real pro IDE, which is Word obviously.
Not to worry my dear Wordpad coders: Neovim is a good alternative. One can always set wrap and the default font to Times New Roman.
“Active development”? What the fuck do they think needed to be done with txt? More ads? They do realize that there are a lot of txt looker aters right? This is not even a fight, its a “well anyway” sort of thing.
probably takes a bit of effort to keep windows built-in spell checker from working in it.
Spell checker works in literally every part of windows (more so where you don’t want it), this is the lamest weak sauce example on why you need to give me $20 ever.
i think he forgot “/s”
