Windows – Launching mspaint and wordpad fail with “Unable to create new document”

microsoft-paintwindows 10wordpad

Launching mspaint or wordpad fails with this prompt. This happens when they are launched from any directory, with or without arguments.

My system is Windows 10 version 2004. I've installed some updates recently, but Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth didn't report any error.

I am aware of this post regarding wordpad. But in my case, all wordpad.exe instances fail with this error.

Any suggestion as to how to troubleshoot will be appreciated.

Best Answer

Follow these steps:

  1. Open Settings, Apps, Apps & features, Optional features.
  2. Select Microsoft Paint and click Uninstall.
  3. Select WordPad and click Uninstall
  4. Click the Add a feature option.
  5. Add (reinstall) Microsoft Paint and WordPad one by one.

Screenshot 01

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