Let's wind the clock back to ~2008. Microsoft's solutions for "word processing" were:
Microsoft Word (you had to pay at least ~£80 for this generally speaking)
Microsoft Works (often bundled free with big-name PCs or could be bought absurdly cheaply, e.g. £5)
WordPad (came with Windows)
Notepad (came with Windows)
Word was what Microsoft wanted you to buy. Works was purposefully hobbled to try and encourage people to buy Word (for example, Works could read and write Word <2007 documents, however if you saved a doc in Word format and then immediately closed Works, it would ask you if you wanted to save the document despite no changes being made since the last save).
However, Works's hobbling wasn't enough as many users with basic needs got along with it just fine so Microsoft turned the screws and ended Works development / availability. Microsoft also briefly flirted with Office 2010 Starter Edition (free with big-name PCs) being cut-down versions of Word and Excel 2010 but encountered the same problem as they did with users being satisfied with it, so they killed that too.
WordPad was more or less another Microsoft stillbirth. According to wiki the first release was with Windows 95 and apart from the fact that WordPad since can "kinda" handle Word =>2007 documents (to a similar extent as Works with pre Word 2007 docs), WordPad received very little love (e.g. no spell checker), and is due to be removed in Win11 24H2 apparently.
Notepad historically has been very much like WordPad but I don't think MS ever intended for it to be more than a very basic plain text editor for things like editing ini files. However, in the last ~3 years it's received various updates like spell check, tabs, and now some kind of AI plugin?
It just seems to me that they're taking a program with a very basic purpose but worked more or less perfectly well in that role to one that will inevitably be abandoned because it has no place in the Microsoft line-up as more than a plain text editor.
Microsoft Word (you had to pay at least ~£80 for this generally speaking)
Microsoft Works (often bundled free with big-name PCs or could be bought absurdly cheaply, e.g. £5)
WordPad (came with Windows)
Notepad (came with Windows)
Word was what Microsoft wanted you to buy. Works was purposefully hobbled to try and encourage people to buy Word (for example, Works could read and write Word <2007 documents, however if you saved a doc in Word format and then immediately closed Works, it would ask you if you wanted to save the document despite no changes being made since the last save).
However, Works's hobbling wasn't enough as many users with basic needs got along with it just fine so Microsoft turned the screws and ended Works development / availability. Microsoft also briefly flirted with Office 2010 Starter Edition (free with big-name PCs) being cut-down versions of Word and Excel 2010 but encountered the same problem as they did with users being satisfied with it, so they killed that too.
WordPad was more or less another Microsoft stillbirth. According to wiki the first release was with Windows 95 and apart from the fact that WordPad since can "kinda" handle Word =>2007 documents (to a similar extent as Works with pre Word 2007 docs), WordPad received very little love (e.g. no spell checker), and is due to be removed in Win11 24H2 apparently.
Notepad historically has been very much like WordPad but I don't think MS ever intended for it to be more than a very basic plain text editor for things like editing ini files. However, in the last ~3 years it's received various updates like spell check, tabs, and now some kind of AI plugin?
Notepad.exe, now an actively maintained app, has gotten its inevitable AI update
Other Windows Insider updates include new CPU instructions for Prism x86 emulator.
arstechnica.com
It just seems to me that they're taking a program with a very basic purpose but worked more or less perfectly well in that role to one that will inevitably be abandoned because it has no place in the Microsoft line-up as more than a plain text editor.