This popular photo editing app will no longer work on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1

Paint.Net, one of the popular and very popular photo editing applications on the PC environment, will soon be no longer supported on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Besides, the application will also be limited to the 64-bit version on Windows 10 and Windows 11 in the future, according to a recent announcement from the developer.

Specifically, according to the share from engineer Rick Brewster, developer of Paint.Net, v4.3.x version will be the last Paint.Net release that works on Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or on any other device. any 32-bit or x86 version of Windows. This is because supporting these older versions of Windows has now become more difficult and time consuming, while the actual user base is not really large and continues to decrease over time.

This is also a move that has been foretold. Because Microsoft itself is currently actively encouraging the developer community to build modern applications only for 64-bit platforms. At the same time, the latest version of Windows - Windows 11 - is only 64-bit, not 32-bit. Even Apple dropped support for 32-bit apps starting with MacOS Catalina launching in 2019.

Besides the change in platform compatibility, Paint.Net's display and startup performance has also been improved in the latest release. The application is currently being migrated to .Net 6, which greatly improves display and startup performance. Other notable changes include a tweaked dark mode, a memory leak that has also been thoroughly fixed, and a series of fixes that affect the overall performance of the app.

Basically, Paint.Net shares a lot in common with Adobe Photoshop. But get a more intuitive and creative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and many useful, powerful tools. Many photo editing professionals often compare Paint.Net with Paint Shop Pro, Microsoft Photo Editor, and even GIMP. However, not many people know that this application started out as an alternative to the built-in paint tool in Windows.