Paint

Is there an older version of Paint that will work in Win10/11? I feel that the functionality has been diminished just for the sake of change. I use paint to recreate things that I had to screen capture in multiple bites. I also cannot edit when the picture is zoomed, I like to get a finer control when making changes. I also don't like the changes to the zoom function also.

Might want to try Paint.NET

But I would recommend you do yourself a favor and go with Paint Shop Pro 7.04... but version 4.12 is by far the easiest.
That's up to you. I think version 7.04 is the best... it has pretty much everything and an easy learning curve.

blasirl said:

Is there an older version of Paint that will work in Win10/11?

Windows Build/Version Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.556)

Click to expand...

In Windows 11 MS Paint has been updated, did you prefer the old MS Paint? Do you have (or can borrow) a PC with Windows 10 on it? If so, then you can copy the old MS Paint from it, put it in a folder somewhere, and run it from there.

You can copy the old MS Paint from a W10 PC and use it in W11. You need a copy of mspaint.exe from System32, and the mspaint.exe.mui from the appropriate language sub-folder of System32, eg System32\en-US or in my case en-GB. Place your copies in a folder anywhere you like (with the .mui in its sub-folder). I keep mine in an 'Old Windows apps' folder.



Then you can run either the old or the new Paint in W11 (or both at the same time). You could even run Paint from a USB stick.

I found a clean, portable copy of MSPaint v5.1 (Windows XP), that runs on Windows 10/11...

Bree said:

You can copy the old MS Paint from a W10 PC and use it in W11. You need a copy of mspaint.exe from System32, and the mspaint.exe.mui from the appropriate language sub-folder of System32, eg System32\en-US or in my case en-GB. Place your copies in a folder anywhere you like (with the .mui in its sub-folder). I keep mine in an 'Old Windows apps' folder.

Click to expand...

I must be doing something wrong. It didn't work when I tried it.

Winuser said:

I must be doing something wrong. It didn't work when I tried it.

Click to expand...

With all these older Win32 versions of the apps, such as the original W10 Notepad and Paint, you need to put the *.exe file in a folder (any folder will do) and create a sub-folder there named en-us (if you are using an en-us install of Windows, for me I have an en-gb sub-folder). The *.exe must have its associated *.exe.mui in a sub-folder of the folder it is executed from. The *.exe.mui provides all the language-specific text for the *.exe to use. If you routinely switch system languages then you'll need the appropriate sub-folders and their .mui for each language.

You'll find the .mui you need to copy in a sub-folder of the folder where you found the .exe, and you should copy it to a sub-folder with the same name in whichever folder you put the .exe. If it fails to open, check that the language(s) you copied over match the system language you are using on the PC you copied it to.

Bree said:

With all these older Win32 versions of the apps, such as the original W10 Notepad and Paint, you need to put the *.exe file in a folder (any folder will do) and create a sub-folder there named en-us (if you are using an en-us install of Windows, for me I have an en-gb sub-folder). The *.exe must have its associated *.exe.mui in a sub-folder of the folder it is executed from. The *.exe.mui provides all the language-specific text for the *.exe to use. If you routinely switch system languages then you'll need the appropriate sub-folders and their .mui for each language.

You'll find the .mui you need to copy in a sub-folder of the folder where you found the .exe, and you should copy it to a sub-folder with the same name in whichever folder you put the .exe. If it fails to open, check that the language(s) you copied over match the system language you are using on the PC you copied it to.

Overview of MUI - Win32 apps

This topic provides a conceptual overview of the Multilingual User Interface (MUI) technology, the platform support it provides for enabling multilingual user experiences, and the benefits it offers to the Windows ecosystem.

docs.microsoft.com

Click to expand...

I have tried it three different ways with the same results. I copied all of the fiiles to a folder. The first try was with the complete en-US folder. The second try I copied just the mspaint .exe.mui to a subfolder named en-US. the third try was just putting the mspaint.exe.mui in the main folder. Every time I try to run mspaint.exe I get a Unable to create a new document error.

Winuser said:

I have tried it three different ways with the same results.... I get a Unable to create a new document error.

Click to expand...

Yes, I have looked at this now and can confirm that error with recent versions of MS Paint. The odd thing is that the same method srill works for running the Win32 version of Notepad.exe

Microsoft had made various changes to Paint over the various builds of Windows 10. Remember the complaints when the 'Edit with Paint 3D' button appeared in W10 v1709? Or when in v1809 it gained a Product alert that said Paint was going to be replaced soon with a Store app? Or the relief when Paint got a reprieve and was going to stay after all?



Well, Somewhere along the way it appears that something was changed in MS Paint that stopped it being able to be copied as a working exe/mui pair. Testing with various build I find that the last version of W10 for which that worked was 1809 (17763). The example screenshot I gave earlier was actually using an even earlier build. It was MS Paint from 1703 (15563) and I'd kept as it was the last build without 'Edit with Paint 3D'.

So if you want a working copy of the old Paint you need to copy it from an older version of Windows 10, no newer than 1809, or no newer than 1703 if you don't want to see Paint 3D on the ribbon. In the (likely) absence of any PC to copy them from, you can open the install.esd or install.wim from an old ISO with 7-Zip File Manager and extract them from there.

There is an installer for the older version of Paint.

The classic Paint (mspaint) app that doesn't include the Edit With Paint 3D and Product Alert buttons.

Edit: If you want to extract the old Paint yourself without the Edit With Paint 3D and Product Alert buttons, I found a clean version in Windows 10 Version 1607.

blasirl said:

Is there an older version of Paint that will work in Win10/11?

Click to expand...

Yes. I've got my old MSPaint from WinXP & MSPaint from Win10 [v1607 version] running on my Windows 11 computer.

See Rescue Old Windows 10 Applications from Oblivion - Windows Enterprise Desktop [Ed Tittel]

I've also got my Win10 Snipping tool on my Windows 11 computer.
I've also copied old versions of Notepad ready to do the same with it if it changes too much in Windows 11.

Best of luck,
Denis

I just gave up - in the end, the changes are only cosmetic ones, and only takes a few minutes to master.

In the end, I always prefer supported versions rather than unsupported versions.

If you really do nor want to use modern version, better to install a supported 3rd party app instead.

I prefer the old one..., the new one is too bland, hard to see...



Funny, the Screenshot in the Store promotes the old style!!!

Ironically, the Marketing Director tells the Design Team not to put a screenshot of the new Paint UI in the Store because it's unfamiliar, users won't identify with it, acceptance will be poor!
That, in itself, speaks volumes already!

cereberus said:

I just gave up - in the end, the changes are only cosmetic ones, and only takes a few minutes to master.

In the end, I always prefer supported versions rather than unsupported versions.

If you really do nor want to use modern version, better to install a supported 3rd party app instead.

Click to expand...

I agree that it's generally a good idea.

But I played around with an older Paint version from Windows 10 Version 1607 and stored it in Program Files.
It worked fine, but I found that if I wanted to associate image files with the older Paint, I had to rename it and the corresponding .mui files in the language sub-folder. I called it ClassicPaint.exe. If I didn't rename it to something other than mspaint.exe, files would continue to open with the new Paint.

Winuser said:

I have tried it three different ways with the same results. I copied all of the fiiles to a folder. The first try was with the complete en-US folder. The second try I copied just the mspaint .exe.mui to a subfolder named en-US. the third try was just putting the mspaint.exe.mui in the main folder. Every time I try to run mspaint.exe I get a Unable to create a new document error.

Click to expand...

I have found you also need to copy the mspaint.exe.mun file from C:\Windows\SystemResources. You will need a tool to run Command Prompt as TrustedInstaller in order to copy to the SystemResources folder then type the command to copy it.

You shouldn't need TrustedInstaller to copy the files.
You can stick the copies anywhere you want to avoid needing any special permissions at all. All my rescued components are in subfolders of C:\Tools which I've created with restricted permissions so that only Admins can change contents. See Set up my Tools folder ditty - TenForums

Did you really mean mspaint.exe.mun rather than mspaint.exe.mui? That would represent a change from the methods used to rescue such components in the past [see EdTittel link in post #10 & many of the comments by others in this thread].
I've only seen .mun files referred to in respect of icons before. What does this one do? / what does failing to copy it do?

All the best,
Denis

In response to Bree, great post, I followed the instructions, missed creating a sub-folder, but once that was corrected, worked like a charm. Thanks for the post. Should add, had to reset my Windows 11 NUC and was stumped on how to install the Classic Paint program. Wish I had found your post first.