Microsoft, in their inestimable wisdom, has quietly removed Wordpad from Windows. This has been a long time in coming, and a recent update finally nixed it. If you never used this app, then this may be no big deal to you. But if you still like it and use it, here’s how to get Wordpad back on your PC:
First Method: Copy It from an Out-of-Date PC
If you have another Windows computer, and it hasn’t installed the latest round of updates, Wordpad may still be there! Open File Explorer and go to
C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories
If this directory is empty, then scroll down to the next method. But if you see “Wordpad”, “WordpadFilter” and a folder named “en-US”, you are in luck! You can harvest these files and move them to another WIndows computer and resume using Wordpad.
Copy the 2 files and the “en-US” folder to a flash drive. Take the flash drive to the other PC and put the files & folder in a new folder (called Wordpad or similar). Store the folder on your desktop or in Documents, so that Microsoft doesn’t remove it during a future update. And anytime you want to use Wordpad, double-click the Wordpad file inside that folder.
Second Method: Download It from a non-Microsoft Source
If you prefer, you may download a Wordpad installer from this website. Watch out for any weird ads, and only click on the big green Download Wordpad button. Save and open that download, you’ll extract the file from the ZIP container, and run the extracted file.
Or, you can get the Wordpad files, as described in the first Method above, from my Google Drive at this link. Just make sure to download “Wordpad.exe”, WordpadFilter.dll” and the folder “en-US. These must stay together for Wordpad to work!
And if you get stuck with any of this, give me a call and we can do this together!