I like the old, classic Paint program that goes back to Windows 7 in 2009. I greatly dislike the new Paint that comes with Windows 11. One morning I arrived to work and found that during the previous evening, a Windows Update had been performed. Oh no. The update removed my well-loved old Paint and replaced it with the new Paint. I wanted my old, classic Paint back.

Note: See a similar post for restoring classic Notepad: https://jamesmccaffreyblog.com/2024/10/19/how-to-restore-classic-notepad-to-windows-after-an-update-removed-it-and-replaced-it-with-the-horrible-new-notepad/.

Here’s how I got my trusty old Paint back. Note: these instructions assume that Windows has been configured to open files with a double-click instead of a single click. See image at very bottom of this page.

1. After the Windows Update, when I clicked on the Start button, my old Paint (mspaint.exe) was nowhere to be seen. It had been replaced by the new Paint. Sadness for me.

2. A search of the Internet yield several web sites to download and install the old Paint. But many of these sites were hoaxes designed to trick you into downloading some other program. Be very careful! The good site for classic Paint that I found was at https://win7games.com/#mspaint. When you click on the Download Paint button, a compressed installer file named ClassicPaint.zip will be downloaded to your Downloads directory

3. Go to the Downloads directory, and double-click on the ClassicPaint.zip file. You will see file ClassicPaint-1.1-setup.exe. Double-click on it to start the installation wizard screens. There are about seven installation screens. You can accept all the defaults. One of the screens tells you how to disable application aliases. Just click on the Open Settings button and then immediately close the Settings because it’s better to do this after installation (in the next screenshot). Eventually you’ll see the complete screen. Uncheck all the options and click the Finish button.

4. Go to Settings | Apps | Advanced App settings | App execution aliases. Scroll to Paint and turn Off the two aliases.

5. At this point you have both the old classic Paint and the new Windows 11 Paint installed. You can leave that or, remove the Windows 11 Paint so that all image files use the Windows 7 classic Paint. Click on Start and type “paint” into the search box. You’ll see both versions of Paint. Right-click on the unwanted Windows 11 Paint and then click on Uninstall. If you ever need to reinstall the Windows 11 Paint, you can go to the Microsoft Store, find it and install it from there.

6. Now to set things so that the classic Windows 7 Paint opens image files (.jpg, .png, etc.) find any .jpg file on your machine and right-click on it. Select “Open with” | “Choose another app”. You’ll see the classic Paint as an option. Select it and then click the “Always” option. Now, any time you double-click on a .jpg file, it will open in classic Paint.

Note: This image shows how to switch between single-click and double-click to open a file.