Microsoft announced in August that they were moving Notepad to the store and updating it more frequently.
Now they’ve changed their minds and have decided not to move Notepad in the upcoming 20H1 update. The change comes in the recent Insider build of 20H1, named 1905 right now, with Microsoft saying, “Thank you for all the feedback you provided on the Store version of Notepad. At this time, we’ve decided not to roll this out to customers.”
The decision not to do it is quite surprising, given the fuss they made about how having Notepad update through the store would ““allow us the flexibility to respond to issues and feedback outside the bounds of Windows releases.” It would have given them the option of modifying and updating Notepad on the fly and more regularly.
Notepad would still be a Windows 10 feature but technically it would become a store app. They had already made the change, even giving you the option to uninstall it, just like you would any other app.
Now, they’ve changed their plans once more and Notepad will remain as it is, leaving many users breathing a huge sigh of relief. After all, Notepad is an integral part of Windows 10 and, surely any changes should be well-tested. And really, most users are quite happy to wait six months for an update to a feature that only needs to be stable.
This is not the first time that Microsoft has changed their mind; not long back they announced Paint was moving to the store but, given the backlash they got, they changed their minds.
It seems that we shouldn’t take Microsoft announcements as definite these days; perhaps they don’t actually know what’s best for their customers.
