Leaked Microsoft videos show redesigned Paint app for Windows 10 with support for 3D objects
Microsoft is building a Windows 10 version of its famous Paint tool. While the software maker has barely updated Paint in recent releases of Windows, the new Paint app will be completely overhauled.
Context & Ripple Effects
This leak is the first public look at what became Paint 3D, the overhauled creation tool Microsoft shipped with the Creators Update: a complete rebuild of an app that had barely changed across recent Windows releases, adding 3D object creation and sharing to a tool dating back decades.
The arc that followed makes the leak more than a curiosity — within a year Microsoft moved to retire the classic app via the Fall Creators Update deprecation, then partially reversed course by listing MS Paint on the Windows Store and keeping it in Windows 10 "for now".
First-order effects
- Windows 10 users get a from-scratch rewrite of Paint centered on creating and manipulating 3D objects, replacing the flat bitmap editor they have used unchanged for years.
- Classic Paint's position inside Windows 10 becomes provisional, since the redesign positions the new app as its successor rather than a companion.
Second-order effects
- Microsoft gains a replacement vehicle for retiring legacy inbox apps: ship the successor first, then deprecate the original — the sequence that produced the Fall Creators Update removal plan.
- Moving Paint to the Windows Store as a free standalone app decouples its updates from the OS release cycle, letting Microsoft iterate without waiting for feature updates.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Windows' built-in utilities shift from frozen legacy code to actively maintained products — borne out by Microsoft still shipping Paint features like layers and transparency in 2023, long after the deprecation attempt failed.
- The walk-back also shows the limits of removing preinstalled software: user attachment to decades-old defaults can force Microsoft to maintain two parallel apps indefinitely.
The trend: Microsoft is converting Windows' frozen legacy utilities into actively updated apps tied to its creator-focused feature updates, while discovering that user attachment constrains how aggressively it can retire the originals.