Enlarge / The venerable WordPad is one of the few built-in Windows apps that hasn't seen any kind of improvement in Windows 11, and now it looks like its days are numbered. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Whatever its other flaws, Windows 11 has given the operating system's built-in app suite its biggest overhaul in many years. For apps like Calculator, the changes have been merely cosmetic, but everything from Sound Recorder to Media Player to Paint to the Snipping Tool has gotten some kind of thoughtful redesign and new features, often for the first time in a decade-plus.

One exception was WordPad, the built-in rich text editor that Windows has included in every version since Windows 95. Though much more limited than Microsoft Word, WordPad was also more versatile than Notepad, capable of saving and reading .rtf, .docx, .odt, and .txt files (though its support for Word documents has always been prone to formatting errors). But its last substantial update came in Windows 7, when it picked up the then-new ribbon interface introduced in Office 2007. That version is still available in Windows 11, with few modifications.

According to Microsoft's deprecated features page for Windows , it looks like WordPad will never be getting a redesign to keep pace with the other Windows apps. The app is "no longer being updated," and though it remains available for now, it "will be removed in a future release of Windows." Microsoft doesn't specify whether it will be removed in an update to Windows 11, or some future major Windows release.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

A few months ago, Microsoft previewed Microsoft 365 Copilot , a new service that promised to integrate generative AI features into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and the other productivity apps formerly known as Microsoft Office . Among other things, Copilot promises to automate the creation of documents and emails, summarize meeting notes, and assist in the analysis of Excel data.

Microsoft has just announced pricing for the Copilot features, and it isn't cheap. Copilot will cost an extra $30 per user per month on top of whatever your business is already paying for Microsoft 365—in many cases, this will double or even triple your monthly costs. Copilot can be added to Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Premium ($12.50 and $22 per user per month, respectively) or to Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 accounts for enterprises ($36 or $57 per user per month). It can't be added to the cheaper Microsoft 365 Business Basic plan or to any home plans.

The relatively high cost is likely related to the high server costs for running these kinds of generative AI models. Copilot also draws context from the other emails, documents, and other files in your business's Microsoft 365 cloud, so each business that Microsoft supports will have a slightly different data set that it will need to be able to draw from.

Enlarge / APT37, a group believed to be backed by the North Korean government, has found success exploiting the bits of Internet Explorer still present in various Windows-based apps. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Microsoft's Edge browser has replaced Internet Explorer in almost every regard, but some exceptions remain. One of those, deep inside Microsoft Word, was exploited by a North-Korean-backed group this fall, Google security researchers claim.

It's not the first time the government-backed APT37 has utilized Internet Explorer's lingering presence, as Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) notes in a blog post . APT37 has had repeated success targeting South Korean journalists and activists, plus North Korean defectors, through a limited but still successful Internet Explorer pathway.

The last exploit targeted those heading to Daily NK , a South Korean site dedicated to North Korean news. This one involved the Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon , which killed at least 151 people. A Microsoft Word .docx document, named as if it were timed and dated less than two days after the incident and labeled "accident response situation," started circulating. South Korean users began submitting the document to the Google-owned VirusTotal, where it was flagged with CVE-2017-0199 , a long-known vulnerability in Word and WordPad.

Related Stories

• How to Get Rid of Reddit’s Persistent Mobile Popup
• How to Turn Yourself Into a Cat (In a Video Call)
• How to Ward Off Spoilers on Twitter