Microsoft Notepad that is available in Windows is a tool that I frequently use to take short notes. Notepad is a common text-only (also referred to as plain text) editor. The resulting files are typically saved with the .txt extension with no format tags or styles, making the program suitable for editing system files that are to be used in a DOS environment.

Notepad can edit files of almost any format. However, it does not treat Unix- or Mac-style text files correctly with missing line breaks. Another feature which I think notepad should have is tabs. If I need to edit 5 text files, I’ll need to open 5 notepads and that messes up my taskbar. There are many free text editors, easily more than 20 of them but one of my favorite is Notepad++.

Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment. This project, based on the Scintilla edit component (a very powerful editor component), written in C++ with pure win32 api and STL (that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program), is under the GPL Licence.

Replace Windows Notepad

Notepad++ Features:

  • Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
  • WYSIWYG
  • User Defined Syntax Highlighting
  • Auto-completion
  • Multi-Document
  • Multi-View
  • Regular Expression Search/Replace supported
  • Full Drag ‘N’ Drop supported
  • Dynamic position of Views
  • File Status Auto-detection
  • Zoom in and zoom out
  • Multi-Language environment supported
  • Bookmark
  • Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting
  • Macro recording and playback

    • The latest version of Notepad++ v5.0 has an improvement in startup and exit performance. If you’re used to using the Windows default Notepad, you will notice that Notepad++ is slightly slower. Other features that are added in Notepad++: Calltip capacity, HTML/XML tag match highlighting, menu commands can be added in context menu, rename and delete current document features, tooltips in document tab to display the full file name path and many more!

    Installing Notepad++ doesn’t replace the original Windows Microsoft Notepad. It only gives you an extra text editor which you can run from Start Menu or Desktop shortcut icon. To replace the original Windows Microsoft Notepad with Notepad++, just follow the few simple steps below.
    1. Go to C:\Windows and backup notepad.exe. Just copy it to another location.
    2. Download Notepad++ v5.0 setup and install.
    3. Download Notepad++ launcher and extract.
    4. Copy notepad.exe which comes with this package into 4 directories (in given order) :
    a. c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386
    b. c:\windows\system32\dllcache
    c. c:\windows\system32
    d. c:\windows
    When you replace notepad.exe in c:\windows\system32 and c:\windows, a “Windows File Protection” message box appears, click Cancel. Then another message box appears, click OK.

    Notepad++ v5.0 is now your default notepad. I suggest that you try out Notepad++ first, get used to it and then only decide whether to replace your Windows Notepad with Notepad++ or not. If you don’t want to replace the default Windows Notepad with Notepad++ but would like to open any text file with it, you can set the file association at Settings > Preferences > File Association.

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