MS Paint. Today, trying to resize a canvas length or width causes the whole canvas to resize

Question

Okay this only started today.

I often have to deal with very long images in MS Paint (say 640w x 7000h in pixels).

Today when I loaded a long image of the above size and then tried to increase the canvas width by say 100px (yes, using the appropriate canvas square grabhandle), every time the canvas changed to 1152w x 648h in pixels, and so losing the vast majority of the image I was trying to work on?

Win 11 Pro and also I reinstalled a fresh install of Paint - same issue. As I said, up until Weds last week things were fine.

I know I can use Image Properties (Ctrl E) but that's inconvenient for what I'm doing (and have been happily doing for years).

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Answer 1

Dear David H,

I am facing the same issue and this seems to be a bug with the most recent version of Paint (11.2512.211.0). Everything was working fine until 2 days ago, when Paint got updated. So I decided to downgrade Paint to the previous version, which is not exactly straightforward. Consider the following steps:

Step 1: Go to https://store.rg-adguard.net (Although not affiliated with MS, its a legit site which hosts original msixbundles directly from MS servers. You can do a quick online search for confirmation)

Step 2: On the left of the search bar, select PackageFamilyName from dropdown and search for Microsoft.Paint_8wekyb3d8bbwe

Step 3: There should now be several links available. Download Microsoft.Paint_11.2511.291.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe.msixbundle (722.88 MB). This is the previous bug-free version of Paint.

Step 4: You may receive warnings from your browser for msixbundle download, simply ignore them. Double-click to initiate installation, again ignore warnings and reinstall.

This should install Paint (11.2511.291.0) without this annoying resize bug. Hope this works out for you too, happy painting!

P.S.: Dear MS Staff, please take note of this bug. This is not an issue with tall images. Even if one tries to resize the canvas, it snaps itself to 1152px x 648px and anything within it gets cropped. This is likely an issue with newer Paint linking display size of our device with image scale internally. Thank you.

Answer 2

It sounds like you're experiencing an issue with MS Paint where resizing the canvas is not behaving as expected. Normally, when you use the sizing handles to adjust the canvas size, it should only change the dimensions of the canvas without affecting the image itself. However, if the entire canvas is resizing unexpectedly, this could be due to a few reasons:

1. Check for Updates: Ensure that your version of MS Paint is up to date. Sometimes, bugs are fixed in newer updates.
2. Reset Settings: If the issue started recently, resetting MS Paint settings to default might help. You can do this by uninstalling and reinstalling the app, which you've already done, but make sure to check if any settings are retained.
3. Use Image Properties: While you mentioned that using Image Properties (Ctrl + E) is inconvenient, it is a reliable way to set the canvas size without affecting the image.
4. Try a Different Tool: If the problem persists, consider using another image editing tool that might handle large images better, such as the Image Resizer utility from PowerToys, which allows for bulk resizing and might provide more control over canvas dimensions.

If none of these solutions work, it could be a specific issue with your installation or a bug that needs to be reported to Microsoft.

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References:

• Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-005 - Moderate
• Image Resizer utility

Answer 3

Hi David H,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum and explaining the issue so clearly. I understand how disruptive this is, especially when a workflow you’ve relied on for years suddenly stops behaving as expected.

From what you’ve described, this doesn’t appear to be user error. With the current Windows 11 Paint app, resizing the canvas using the drag handles may have limitations when working with very tall images. In these scenarios, the image itself can be resized instead of just the canvas, which can lead to unintended loss of visible content.

For the time being, the most reliable workaround is to resize the canvas using Image Properties (Ctrl + E) rather than the canvas handles. I know that’s less convenient for your workflow, but it does avoid the image being scaled or cropped unintentionally.

To help get this resolved, I’d also recommend submitting feedback via the Feedback Hub (press Windows key + F). That feedback goes directly to the Paint product team and can help raise the priority of issues like this.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards.