[Tip] Remove or Restore MS Paint, Notepad and Wordpad in Windows 10
This tutorial will help you in uninstalling and removing Microsoft Paint, Notepad and Wordpad apps in your Windows 10 computer. You’ll also be able to reinstall and restore these apps if these apps are missing in your computer system. Similarly, if you are facing issues and problems with these apps (such as crashing, giving errors, hanging, freezing, etc), you can repair these apps by first uninstalling and then reinstalling them using the steps given in this tutorial.
Recently an AskVG reader contacted me regarding a weird issue. He was unable to find and open Microsoft Paint, Notepad and Wordpad programs in his Windows 10 device. All 3 programs were not listed and missing in Start Menu programs list. He was also unable to launch the programs using their executable commands such as paint, notepad, etc using RUN dialog box and search box.
Whenever he was trying to open an image file or a text document, Windows 10 was showing following error message:
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Windows cannot find ‘mspaint’ or ‘notepad’ or ‘wordpad’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.
So what caused this issue? Actually newer versions of Windows 10 come with built-in functionality to uninstall and remove Microsoft Paint, Notepad and Wordpad programs along with many other programs such as Internet Explorer 11 (IE11), Windows Media Player (WMP), etc. So now users can remove these essential and built-in programs from Windows 10 which was not possible in past.
It might be possible that the reader used some 3rd party software programs which removed these apps from Windows 10. Sometimes users can manually uninstall these programs which may cause these error messages.
Don’t worry! Uninstalling or reinstalling these programs is very easy in Windows 10. You can remove or restore these programs any time whenever you want using a few simple steps which we are going to share in this tutorial.
If you also want to get rid of these unwanted apps or if you want to restore these missing apps in your Windows 10 computer system, following steps will help you:
1. Open Settings app from Start Menu or by pressing WIN+I keys together.
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2. Now go to “Apps -> Apps & features” section. Click on “Optional features” link given below Apps & Features section.
PS: Alternatively, You can directly launch this page using “ms-settings:optionalfeatures” command in RUN dialog box as mentioned here.
3. If you want to uninstall and remove an app such as Microsoft Paint, Notepad, Wordpad, etc, look for the app in the given list under Installed Features section.
Click on the desired app which you want to remove and then click on Uninstall button.
That’s it. It’ll uninstall and delete the app from your Windows 10 device.
4. If you want to reinstall and restore an app, click on “+ Add a Feature” button given at the top of the page.
It’ll open a new window. Now select the desired app by enabling its checkbox and click on Install button.
You can also type the app name in given search box and then select the app using the checkbox.
It’ll reinstall and add the app in your Windows 10 device. Windows 10 will show progress information while the app is being reinstalled in your computer system.
Also Check:
[Tip] Enable or Disable Programs and Apps Automatically Restarting with Windows 10
[Fix] Windows cannot Find Office Applications EXE Files Error Message in Windows 10
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