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points by everylostbit 2 days ago | 0 comments

This seems to affect only paint 11.0.0.0 up to, but not including, 11.2605.91.0. For folks like me, running a much older version, its probably safe, although its Windows so, I'm not too sure.

[–] tjohns 2 days ago

I'm amazed MS Paint is somehow up to version 11, let alone 11.2605 (!). I literally can't remember the last time I used it, but what are they even changing?

[–] Legend2440 2 days ago

They've added a lot of features and it's almost like Photoshop Elements now. It has layers, general photo editing tools, an AI generator, etc.

[–] anal_reactor 2 days ago

I remember that when Paint started being funky I found a Windows XP exe and used that. I want Paint to be the graphical equivalent of hexedit.

Now that I'm on Linux, I use jspaint.app.

[–] boomlinde 2 days ago

I still use the Paint from Windows XP, running in Wine.

I would use kolourpaint but for whatever reason overlaid GUI elements like the selection box and brush cursors leave trails on the canvas.

Fun anecdote, paint.exe crashed the other day just as I was finishing up my drawing of the tower of Babel.

[–] WarOnPrivacy 2 days ago

Windows 11 26H2 w/ MSPaint is 10.26100.1. It's just right.

[–] pasteleft 2 days ago

Honestly I like layers in Paint. Even pixel art programs have layers.

[–] QuantumNomad_ 2 days ago

I remember when I was doing pixel art, there were some purists that insisted that using layers and transparency/opacity to create windows for your buildings is more or less cheating. According to them, one should manually figure out what the color palette should be for things seen through a window.

Anyway, I continued using layers and transparency/opacity. Pixel art was hard enough already for me, so I didn’t feel that it made sense to artificially make it even more difficult for myself at the time. I had enough other aspects of pixel art to work out already in order to try to get better at it.

[–] rkachowski 1 day ago

XP era mspaint with layers is really all I want. Rudimentary image editing and drawing but with layers.

[–] IAmBroom 1 day ago

Add threshold select (magic wand), and I'll agree 100%.

[–] breakwaterlabs 1 day ago

They should have just hired the paint.net guy and rolled it in.

The point of paint is a tiny pixel editor. If you want layers there are better programs.

[–] card_zero 1 day ago

But is Windows 11 paint capable of pixel art? I'm reading that it antialiases everything.

[–] Measter 1 day ago

You can draw single pixels. I'm not sure where whoever told you that got it from.

[–] jasomill 1 day ago

And create single-pixel images. My most used application of Paint by far is creating single-pixel PNG files to work around the fact that "solid color" is not an option for lock/login screen backgrounds.

[–] card_zero 1 day ago

But can you resize without antialiasing, and does pasting trigger antialiasing?

There's this https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/threads/why-does-resizing-m... (made confusing by the next person talking about Paint 3D, a different application) and this https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3991946/... (made confusing by the person being an artist and talking in peanut butter metaphors).

There's some suggestion there that shapes (including lines) are separate entities from pixels. Wikipedia references a now-deleted answers.microsoft.com version of the first question https://web.archive.org/web/20250203164656/https://answers.m... with a couple of people saying that resize is useless. Wiki also says "re-copied" images blur, which is why I wondered if that meant pasting. Also this: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5673783/... a complaint that the tool for drawing pixels doesn't indicate exactly which pixel it will draw to.

[–] Measter 1 day ago

I can't reproduce any of those issues. When drawing the indicator snaps to a pixel, so it's perfectly clear where it's going. When I draw a line, it's pixel-perfect when moving the control points, likewise after it finalises. And when I copy a section of the image and paste it back in, it's pixel-perfect as I move and when I finalise. There doesn't seem to be a true resize; all I seem to be able to do is change the size of the canvas, which doesn't add any kind of aliasing.

But I've only used the program for less than 5 minutes, so maybe it's configured differently?

[–] IAmBroom 1 day ago

Yes, resizing within Paint preserves pixel-level color. I just resized a single pixel dot to about 14x25 without aliasing.

I don't know why you are so concerned, but it's incredibly easy to test these questions if you really want to know.

[–] bombcar 2 days ago

Just like any text editor is doomed to become either Emacs or Word, so any image editor is doomed to become Photoshop.

[–] echion 2 days ago

Reminds me of Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment[^1,2]: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."

[^1]: https://lawsofsoftwareengineering.com/laws/zawinskis-law/

[^2]: https://www.jwz.org/hacks/

[–] wilkystyle 2 days ago

Too true. I gave up trying to fight it years ago and now write all my documents in Emacs and edit my code with Microsoft Word.

[–] jodrellblank 2 days ago

Did you miss the chance to edit your code with MS Paint as your IDE?

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=mspaint+ide

[–] sam345 2 days ago

Except Vim of course.

[–] eru 1 day ago

Well, there's vile for you.

[–] mihaaly 1 day ago

I hope MS is not getting exclusive right for manufacturing spoons because I want mine to scoop up stuff like soup or ice-cream without smart features activated by elegant touch UI on the handle like cutting down trees being in the way to the grocery store to 'elevate user experience', or others. This stuffing more and more into everything and anything for the sake of shock and awe is a stupid (and dangerous) thing.

[–] JdeBP 2 days ago

It's the last two digits of the year plus the month number. That was June 2026. It was 2504 in May 2025, and 2402 in March 2024.

[–] what 2 days ago

>2605

>june 2026

Pretty sure it would be May?

But in either case they had 91 releases that month?

[–] JdeBP 2 days ago

You haven't spotted that it's regularly being released the month following the revision number. (-: Because Microsoft will of course have a release pipeline that things have to go through.

They're not a positional notation. It's version 11.2605.91 recently. It was 11.2605.81 earlier this year. There was an 11.2605.71 and an 11.2605.61 before that. Last year, there was a 11.2504.451 . The year before there was a 11.2402.32 .

Microsoft's versioning systems are not 4 columns where a tick around of one increments the one before it. The easiest way to think of them is madness made for marketing purposes. (Windows NT starting at 3.1, for example.) There is some logic to it, but nowadays it's often four entirely different things jammed together, ticking around independently. Like the version of Windows, the year and month of the release, and perhaps a daily build number or some such.

Windows NT itself has a monotonically increasing build number as part of its versioning that started some time in 1992 and is currently just over 26 thousand.

[–] gnabgib 2 days ago

Call a paleontologist, it kooks like we've found a Java developer

[–] Rexxar 2 days ago

Maybe someone insisted to start counting month at zero.

[–] hulitu 2 days ago

They didn't get the right roundness from the first time. /s

[–] StilesCrisis 2 days ago

The Windows 11 version is a complete rewrite.

[–] CursedSilicon 2 days ago

So was the Windows 7 version

[–] chungy 2 days ago

Windows 7 added ribbons to the UI. It's unlikely it was a rewrite. Just a retooling of what Vista had, which in turn what Windows XP had, which... [continue down the line until Windows 1.0].

[–] Kwpolska 2 days ago

They also added brushes and shapes, they might have rewritten it at that point.

[–] hulitu 2 days ago

Did you noticed the round buttons lately ?

[–] grishka 2 days ago

You can't have finished software any more. It's now illegal or something. Must keep changing things forever. And must add some AI features of course, to make the VCs happy.

[–] jval43 2 days ago

They added AI.

[–] sznio 2 days ago

it seems to be the same version/build as the whole system

[–] HoldOnAMinute 2 days ago

Ads, subscriptions, AI

[–] Kapura 2 days ago

This was my observation too; I assume 11.0.0.0 is windows 11? because my windows 10 mspaint doesn't even match that numbering format.

[–] everylostbit 2 days ago

yes that is my exact situation. I think (hope?) Microsoft would've disclosed it if prior versions were affected too, although I never heard the "old" paint have anything to do with network, so there's that.

[–] novia 2 days ago

My version shows "22H2" I don't know if I'm vulnerable or not

[–] durmusk 2 days ago

That is Windows version. But you probably use the regular Win32 Paint, so should be okay.

[–] lossyalgo 2 days ago

> I don't know if I'm vulnerable or not

Are you using Windows? If so, then yes.

[–] cowlevel 2 days ago

Or if you're using Linux. Or OSX. seL4 users are safe though, mostly because their computers don't do anything useful.