If you haven’t been keeping up on the latest WordPad gossip, the program was recently shelved by Microsoft in favor of… well, in favor of nothing, actually. So if you have an RTF file on your hard drive, a default Windows installation can no longer access it. Of course, Microsoft is happy to provide full RTF compatibility—within the friendly confines of a monthly fee for Microsoft Word.

WordPad’s exit stage left has been some time in coming. Microsoft made it an optional install in the penultimate Windows 11 release, and with the latest version, it has been removed altogether. So if you have RTF files and the latest version of Windows, here are your options to access them:

1. Microsoft Word – Puritas Springs uses Word all the time, as do many of our customers, so the easiest solution is just to keep using Word.
2. Third-Party Software – If you’ve grown weary of Microsoft’s relentless push for Office 365 and OneDrive, third-party solutions such as LibreOffice, AbiWord, and Jarte fully support RTF files. Notepad++, is our recommendation, it’s an excellent text editor that can open and edit RTFs, the only drawback is that it won’t save in RTF format.
3. Resurrect WordPad from an Older Windows Installation – If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can pluck WordPad.exe off an older Windows installation and move it over to the latest Windows 11 release. This can be accomplished by copying the contents of the C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories folder from the older computer to the new one.
4. Download an Installer – The citizens of the Internet have stepped in and created a WordPad installer you can download if you don’t have access to an older Windows installation or just aren’t keen on manually moving executables between operating systems.

Regardless of the way forward, keep in mind that while WordPad can still be reinstated through sheer will, this is a short-term solution. WordPad will no longer receive updates, meaning it will eventually stop running on newer operating systems. More importantly, it will no longer receive security patches, so any future exploits will remain unaddressed.

So while WordPad’s forced retirement will likely be met with indifference by many, we at Puritas Springs would like to salute the old standby. We relied on it for the last 30 years to handle our RTF needs and it never once let us down.