According to the Roadmap page, version 1.0 was released four years ago on May 6th, 2004. Happy birthday Paint.NET!
As most people know, Paint.NET started as a senior design project at Washington State University‘s EECS department. When we finished the first version, it was meant as a “hey look we actually made something – neat!” project that we showed off to family and friends. A simple website was put up on the eecs.wsu.edu web server, and the project was neither hyped nor advertised once the semester was over. Fast forward a few months later, after I started working full time at Microsoft, and I was forwarded e-mail from some interns who had managed to find it and were asking about why it wouldn’t install on XP SP2.
Interesting things to know about the first version of Paint.NET, in no particular order:
· It took 15 weeks to complete, from start to finish.
· It was about 36,000 lines of code.
· It was distributed as a raw MSI, instead of an installer/wizard EXE.
· It required Windows XP SP1 as the minimum OS. There was no support for 2000.
· And, because of a typo, it did not work in Windows XP SP2! Changing an equals operator, =, to a greater-than-or-equals operator, >=, fixed this.
· Plugins were not supported.
· We used a CVS server that was running on an XP box that doubled as one of our development workstations. It was in the EECS computer lab that other people had access to, and we had to tape a piece of paper on to it that said, “SERVER – DO NOT TURN OFF!”
· We did not have a bug tracking system. We either fixed bugs immediately as we saw them, or put them in to an Excel spreadsheet (mostly the former).
· I made the floating windows translucent after observing that most people didn’t even try drawing in the occluded areas when I handed them a tablet PC with Paint.NET on it (“hey you, draw something!”). It was if that area of the canvas didn’t exist. Once the windows were made translucent, this went away! Usability studies really do work.
· For the first month or so of development, the status bar had no information in it. Instead, it had the text: “I am the status bar!!!!!!!!!1111”
paint.net blog 
Aww, I thought this was going to be an announcement for Paint.Net version 4.0 🙂
Anyway congratulations on creating an excellent tool – I use your product all the time, and I’m sure it’ll just get better. When I graduate from university I’ll send a few dollars your way.
Congrats!
Happy Birthday… the best free software ever. Thank you so much for making this happen.
Happy birthday! 🙂
“I am the status bar!!!!!!!!!1111″, love it. 😀
Happy birthday Paint.net!
happy birthday
the same birthday of my “GF”
cool
Happy Birthday!
I remember using version 2.0 and being really excited when 2.1 came out. Look how far you’ve come!
Now, where’s that fameous screenshot of 1.0?
Thats nice. Hope this would grow larger and be the next industry best!
Happy Quad Birthday! 😀 And thanks for a great program. It’s really fast with Vista 64 bit. I love it.
Congrats!
This is a screeny Rick posted in the pictorium.
😛
(VERY FIRST screenshot of paint.net)
I love how it says
“I’m the status bar!!!!!!!!!!!!11”
😛
I saw rick talking about that somewhere.. and had to see if it really did say that..
You should set the unofficial release date of Paint.NET v4.0 to be on May 6th, 2009. That is around the time that v4.0 is planned for a release, no?
I also thought it was paint.net 4.0! But paint.net is pretty soon to be version 4.0! 😀
Paint.net PWNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 thanks all u pplz!
Excellent Work… Excellent application.. I love it..
I have just recently downloaded paint.net and still learning how to use it, but i gotto say its a wicked program and much easyier to use then paintshop and photoshop etc.
You have done great work on the program that weren’t even gonna be used as a program.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
Happy Birthday! 😀 And thanks for a great program. It’s really fast & easy in use. I love it.