'MS Paint is here to stay': Microsoft says app will be available for free

Fans of MS Paint will be tickled pink to find out that Microsoft is not getting rid of the program just yet.

"MS Paint is here to stay," Microsoft said in a statement Monday evening following an "incredible outpouring of support and nostalgia" for the app.

It's been amazing to see so much love for our trusty old app.- Microsoft

Paint has been a staple of the Windows operating system since it was introduced in 1985.

"The great thing about it is it is so simple that literally a five-year-old could start playing with it, whereas something like Photoshop, it's obviously more complicated," Pat Hines, who has worked exclusively in the medium for years, told CBC Radio's As It Happens.

Hines said the program's simplicity spurred his creativity.

"It forces you to be more creative and come up with different solutions for different problems," he said.

Clear up 'confusion'

Users believed the trusty program was getting the pink slip because a supporting document to the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update listed MS Paint as "deprecated," meaning "not in active development and might be removed in future releases." 

The outcry could be heard all over the internet on Monday. 

That had Microsoft waving the white flag, saying it wanted to "set the record straight, clear up some confusion."

The company said Paint will — for now, at least — be moving to the Windows Store, where it will be available for users to download for free. It will just no longer be installed by default.

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"If there's anything we learned, it's that after 32 years, MS Paint has a lot of fans," Microsoft's statement said. "It's been amazing to see so much love for our trusty old app."

Some of MS Paint's functionality was already integrated into Paint 3D, which came with the Windows 10 update released in April and will remain the default art app.