Windows Journal is a discontinued

notetaking Note-taking (sometimes written as notetaking or note taking) is the practice of recording information from different sources and platforms. By taking notes, the writer records the essence of the information, freeing their mind from having to reca ...

application, created by Microsoft and included in

Windows XP Tablet PC Edition Windows XP, which is the next version of Windows NT after Windows 2000 and the successor to the consumer-oriented Windows Me, has been released in several editions since its original release in 2001. Windows XP is available in many languages. In ...

as well as selected editions of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

and later. It allowed the user to create and organize handwritten notes and drawings, and to save them in a file, or export them in

TIFF Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word process ...

format. It can use an ordinary

computer mouse A computer mouse (plural mice, sometimes mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional space, two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer (user interface ...

to compose a handwritten note, as well as a

graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a spec ...

or a

Tablet PC A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...

JNT format

Microsoft has provided no documentation for its proprietary file format, which makes it difficult or impossible for other developers or software publishers to read or write files. Therefore, other programs cannot import Windows Journal files. There can be no third-party applications that make direct use of files created with Windows Journal. files should be converted to other formats such as

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

with the Journal Reader Supplemental Component, for external applications to use.

Windows Journal Viewer

Windows Journal Viewer, also created by Microsoft, allows viewing the Windows Journal notes ( files) on other systems without the Tablet PC software. The most recently released version 1.5.2316.0 for

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was offici ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

and

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 is the sixth version of Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows NT family of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on March 28, 2003 and generally available on April 24, 2 ...

was removed as of March 2016.

Discontinuation

Windows Journal was not visibly updated after its introduction and eventually became obsolete, although it was tested for compatibility throughout the development of new versions of Windows and patched for security vulnerabilities as recently as May 2016. Windows Journal was available in the original July 2015 release of

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on ...

and the November Update, but it was removed in the summer 2016 "Anniversary Update." All of its features are available in OneNote, which is integrated into Windows 10. OneNote does not support files, but Microsoft offers the ability to reinstall Journal and a tool for converting Journal files to OneNote files. On July 12, 2016, Microsoft released a patch (KB3170735) for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to notify users about future Windows Journal developments. On August 9, 2016, Microsoft released another patch (KB3161102) to remove Windows Journal from Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 due to the Windows Journal file format (Journal Note File, or JNT) being susceptible to security exploits.

JNT format

Windows Journal Viewer

Discontinuation

See also

References

Further reading