It's all drying up: Microsoft to erase 3D Paint from digital store

Microsoft has hammered home a final nail in the coffin of its Mixed Reality adventures with confirmation that Paint 3D is to be ditched once and for all in the not-too-distant-future. The application was announced in 2016 as part of Microsoft's Creators Update and launched in 2017. The plan was that users would embrace the …

[pip25]

We're going to need a Microsoft (Windows) graveyard, too

Aero, then touch operation and the interface formerly known as Metro, Cortana, augmented reality, and now so-called AI. I assume much of the latter will be gone too by the time Windows 12 rolls around.

Could we have a no frills version, perhaps? I'd even pay money for it.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Re: We're going to need a Microsoft (Windows) graveyard, too

I'm guessing a lot of the AI tech will probably be join Paint 3D there in a couple of years unless it can start making a billion dollars a year. At present they're subsidising it.

Jaded and cynical icon because I'm a jaded and cynical person.

[druck]

Re: We're going to need a Microsoft (Windows) graveyard, too

Don't forget Bob, Clippy and of course Zune.

[Chasxith]

Re: We're going to need a Microsoft (Windows) graveyard, too

Media Centre OS's, desktop widgets (twice) MS Silverlight......and Windows Phone

This made entertaining reading: https://killedby.tech/microsoft/

[milliemoo83]

Re: We're going to need a Microsoft (Windows) graveyard, too

"Don't forget Bob, Clippy and of course Zune."

Comic Sans...

[steviebuk]

Ironic

considering at work stuck with shitty 3d paint and normal paint has disappeared.

[may_i]

True to form

The landscape of Windows apps is about as short lived as supported versions of C# and .NET, .NET Framework, .NET Core and whatever version or branding it is today.

You're confused? I have to work with these constantly shifting sands which they call a development environment.

[Mostly Irrelevant]

Re: True to form

Still beats most JS frameworks, you're lucky to get a year out of those.

[ecofeco]

Who even used it?

It was a solution in search of problem. What was it supposed to do? What was its utility? Were the files compatible with any other programs outside of the M$ walled garden?

I vaguely remember looking at it and asking myself those question. And then never opened it again. It seems more of a toy than a useful program.

[JimboSmith]

Re: Who even used it?

Actually it does have one very useful feature that I liked which is the magic select and the ability to rotate the selected piece. Other than that I didn't use for anything else.

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: Who even used it?

I use Paint for pretty much only one thing: cropping, circling and captioning places in images. The odd arrow. Anything more sophisticated, I fire up GIMP.

C'mon, Microsoft, quit trying to solve *all* mankind's software problems and just try to do a few things well. Choose carefully. And fire the next guy who convinces you to build some new, trendy hardware gadget...it's not gonna sell, and Apple can do it better and make more money off it.

Yeah, I know, I should quit dreaming.

[parrot]

MSPAIN.EXE

Lol yes I know it’s childish… remember though, pain is just French for bread.

[Pascal Monett]

True, but we French don't pronounce the "n". This web page says that it is pronounced /pɛ̃/, for those of you who understand that kind of thing and, for those of you who don't (like me), there's a nifty little sound icon that will let you hear the word.

[Phil O'Sophical]

Unless you're down on the S. Coast, where you get offered peng to go with your veng...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did anyone else see the picture and twitch...

about the paint running all over the metal ferrules of the brushes?

If you don't understand, here's a point of advice when doing ANY kind of painting (artistic or plain wall): get the paint only on the bottom half of the bristles. If it gets on the full bristles (as shown by the metal having some), it's very difficult to clean the paint out of the part of the bristle inside and near the metal ferrule. If not 100% clean there, the brush will be extremely stiff once dried; this is typically not reversible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now can they bring back Paint from Windows 2000?

If they *need* to develop something, they can finish off and add transparency support to it if absolutely necessary.

Of course, I am sure their mythical "users survey" will instead suggest that people want them to remove paint entirely and replace it with an "AI bitcoin wallet" or some shite instead.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Paint 3D is to be ditched once and for all in the not-too-distant-future."

Will they use a paint stripper or just sand it down?

[Vincent van Gopher]

Burn it with fire with the largest blowtorch you can find. Then do the rest :)

[Ken Shabby]

Nuke it from orbit... It’s the only way to be sure.

[Alan Bourke]

A very odd product

Who's it aimed at - casual 3d scene artists? Lots of those guys ...

[david1024]

So, the question is why change anything?

So, I'll point to this and say that windows, and PC operating systems in general, with their baseline set of utilities... have been feature-complete for decades.

The only changes made these days seem to be to drum up interest in the OS they are bundled with or try to bring in a subscription model for what is necessarily part of being able to use the hardware to actually 'compute'. I'm not sure what AI is going to bring to the party here, but TBH, if they break MSPAINT.... pinta does the same job without all the MS cruft and is cross platform.