Undo in MS Paint

Hello folks!

I'm hoping someone can help with this.

When editing in MS Paint I often have the requirement to 'undo' the last few steps.

Currently, Paint only seems to undo the last four - I'd like it to do more, say 10 or 15.

I'm assuming this can be done as a Registry hack as there isn't a 'Tools' or 'Settings' menu in Paint that allows you to change the number of 'back-steps'.

For example, I believe Excel keeps the last 16 changes in RAM, which can be changed in the following Registry Key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Ver.\Excel\Options
(where Ver. is the version number of Excel - for example 12.0 for Excel 2003).

Create a new DWORD value, select New Value #1, type 'UndoHistory' press Enter.

On the Edit menu, click 'Modify'.

In the DWORD value dialog, click 'Decimal' under base, then a value between 1 and 100, then OK.

See: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-modify-the-number-of-undo-levels-in-excel

I'm guessing you can do a similar thing in Paint?

There doesn't seem to be a similar key for Paint in KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft, nor, indeed, is there a registry key for 'UndoHistory' at all.

Thanks in advance,

Art

Art,

If there was any such option for Paint, I'd expect it to be in

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint

If you are going to experiment then I'd think the Settings Sub-Key would be the lost likely one.
- I assume you will make a backup of the whole Paint Registry Key before you start - right-click, Export, [use the .reg format expert because the .txt one is useless]


By the way, your Office version numbering doesn't match what I have noted:
Office 2016+ = 16.0
Office 2013 = 15.0
Office 2010 = 14.0
Office 2007 = 12.0
Office 2003 = 11.0
From Information about the Outlook AutoComplete list - KB2199226

All the best,
Denis

Try3 said:

Art,

If there was any such option for Paint, I'd expect it to be in

Code:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint

If you are going to experiment then I'd think the Settings Sub-Key would be the lost likely one.
- I assume you will make a backup of the whole Paint Registry Key before you start - right-click, Export, [use the .reg format expert because the .txt one is useless]

By the way, your Office version numbering doesn't match what I have noted:
Office 2016+ = 16.0
Office 2013 = 15.0
Office 2010 = 14.0
Office 2007 = 12.0
Office 2003 = 11.0
From Information about the Outlook AutoComplete list - KB2199226

All the best,
Denis

Thanks Denis. Will give it a go.

There is the issue that I prefer the original Paint and not the 'N&I' version of course which may complicate matters!

Regarding the Excel versions - this was from the M$oft website (link in the original post)!



Art

UPDATE:

After Denis' post (below) I had another look at the M$oft website reffered to above.

It seems that a copywriter has put the carriage returns in the wrong place, and the list should look like this!



That's what happens when you check your own copy. Always get someone else to double-check!

Art

Art,

In the MS article you used, the Office version is stated before each entry. So it is saying

MS said:

Office Excel 2003
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options

Their list starts with the label then the entry for Excel 2007 and it ends with the label Excel 2000 then its entry.
If you read each label & each entry then it must be this way round for every label to have an entry.
- I have reported the jumbled labelling to MS so they might change it by 2051.
- We can give feedback on this and other MS articles by clicking on the Was this information helpful? - No button because doing so brings up a feedback dialog.


Are you using Office 2003?
Is your Excel.exe file in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12
or somewhere else, such as ---\Office11?
My Excel 2007 Excel.exe is in that C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12 folder.


All the best,
Denis

@ArthurDent

Please... do yourself a favor. Try.... Paint Shop Pro.
Version 4.12 is the easiest, and most like MS Paint. Only difference is that it can do way more.

The learning curve is fast and intuitive. And it has a huge (infinite?)... Undo.

Paint Shop Pro 4.12 and 7.04 and 8.1 and 9.01




This pic is from PSP 7.04, but it's the same as 4.12 if I recall.
The top dot UNdoes the last thing you did.
The bottom dot, list ALL the things you did in a list. You can just click on any item on the list and UNdo that item and everything above that item...






For example... here are the things I did to this picture. The... "Command History"
They are numbered as well. #1 being the "first" thing I did.

What ever number I highlight, it will UNdo that number and every thing above that number.






In one afternoon, you would be able to do everything MS Paint can do, and a whole lot more.
Just take a screen shot, open Paint Shop Pro, choose: Edit > Paste
Then start playing around with the options. I HATE overly complex programs.

Paint Shop Pro, CAN do everything, but you really only have to "learn" the things you want to do.
You won't get "sucked down a rabbit hole" if all you want to do is say... crop an image.

You just use the Select tool and drag a box around what you want to keep, then click: Image > Crop to selection.

Paint Shop Pro is sort of like a carpenter's tool box. All the tools are separate.
You don't need to learn how to use a plane, just to hammer a nail.





This took about 10 minutes to make with PSP 7.04...






Six minutes... and it's on a transparent background. So the background will be whatever color it is... where I post it.





Again... this is PSP 7.04
But 4.12 can do all of this, just as easily.

All I really had to do, was "select" each frame in the original pic. "Copy" the selection, and "paste" it into the...
transparent background pic. ONLY using the mouse.

Try3 said:

Art,

In the MS article you used, the Office version is stated before each entry. So it is saying

Their list starts with the label then the entry for Excel 2007 and it ends with the label Excel 2000 then its entry.
If you read each label & each entry then it must be this way round for every label to have an entry.
- I have reported the jumbled labelling to MS so they might change it by 2051.
- We can give feedback on this and other MS articles by clicking on the Was this information helpful? - No button because doing so brings up a feedback dialog.

Are you using Office 2003? Nope - 2016 Pro Plus
Is your Excel.exe file in
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12 Yep - with an Office16 not Office12 folder
or somewhere else, such as ---\Office11?
My Excel 2007 Excel.exe is in that C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12 folder.

All the best,
Denis

@Try3

My post #3 now contains the correct table (which agrees with your info)

Ghot said:

@ArthurDent

Please... do yourself a favor. Try.... Paint Shop Pro.
Version 4.12 is the easiest, and most like MS Paint. Only difference is that it can do way more.

The learning curve is fast and intuitive. And it has a huge (infinite?)... Undo.

Thanks Ghot

I have a purchased copy of PS Pro 7 (not sure of the exact version number) but it doesn't like data drives above 1TB (simply won't work) - or at least, that has been my experience.

Is yours on a drive greater than 1TB?

Love the H2G2 pix by the way used to illustrate your post!

Art

ArthurDent said:

@Try3

My post #3 now contains the correct table (which agrees with your info)



Thanks Ghot

I have a purchased copy of PS Pro 7 (not sure of the exact version number) but it doesn't like data drives above 1TB (simply won't work) - or at least, that has been my experience.

Is yours on a drive greater than 1TB?

Love the H2G2 pix by the way used to illustrate your post!

Art

I have PSP 7.04 "installed" on a 500GB SSD (the 200GB Windows C: partition).
My storage drives are 4TB and 8TB.

Art,

I think we have had this conversation before but
- What is it you do that you in MSPaint?
- What was that default behaviour of later versions of MSPaint that made you decide to rescue the earlier version you are currently using?

Perhaps Mike can advise on these particular aspects of MSPaint in comparison to PSP.

All the best,
Denis

Try3 said:

Art,

I think we have had this conversation before but
- What is it you do that you in MSPaint?
- What was that default behaviour of later versions of MSPaint that made you decide to rescue the earlier version you are currently using?

Perhaps Mike can advise on these particular aspects of MSPaint in comparison to PSP.

All the best,
Denis

Hi Denis,

Yep, we have!

The latest versions of Paint (what I ironically refer to as 'N&I Paint' - for "New and Improved Paint") are (to my mind at least) infuriating in that M$oft have changed the bahaviour of the TAB key when typing text in a text box. You may recall that instead of TAB inserting a number of spaces up to the next tab stop (as you would expect as that is the "normal behaviour" of the TAB key), it switches focus to the text box adjustment "handles" and won't return control to the text cursor inside the box.

Why anybody would think this non-standard behaviour of the TAB key is an improvement is beyond me. It wouldn't be so bad if M$oft allowed you to choose the behaviour of the tab key ("traditional" or the "new" version) - but they don't. Once again, they foist a peculiarity onto users that we either have to live with, or find "work arounds".

You were extremely helpful in guiding me in the right direction to replace "N&I Paint" in the latest builds of Windows 10 with the "old" (some may say, unbroken) version.

Regarding my use, I do a lot of screen grabs of images and use Paint to do pixel-level editing (such as the image in post #3 under 'Update') which was the original grab from the M$oft page which was then "tweaked" to show the correct information.

Although Paint is, for want of a better description, crude (in that it doesn't do all that much) for simplicity and ease at working at pixel-level, I think it is unbeatable. Of course, YMMV.

Regarding PSP - the program (I think my purchased copy dates back to around 2000) and will run on Windows 10 but seems to have a built-in limitation in that it can't work with 1TB drives (of course 1TB drives didn't exist back in the year 2000). IIRC the first 3.5-inch 1TB hard disk for domestic use was the HGST Hitachi Deskstar in 2006 or '07 (?)

Kind regards

Art