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.
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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1. Download Notepad++ v5.0 setup and install.
2. Download Notepad++ launcher (here: notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/commun/misc/NppLauncher.bin.zip ) and extract.
3. save commands below into install.bat where you have extracted launcher.
ren c:\windows\notepad.exe notepad-sineld.exe
copy notepad.exe c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386
copy notepad.exe c:\windows\system32\dllcache
copy notepad.exe c:\windows\system32
copy notepad.exe c:\windows
exit
4. run install.bat
that’s all!
you have replaced your notepad!
This method didn’t work for me.
Just take a notepad file in one of your folders, right click it and go to properties. Change open with from notepad to open with notepad++.
Even notepad++’s installer “make default notepad” didn’t work.
The current version is 5.7.
how would we go about using new versions of notepad++?
Not a complete replacement but I either start notepad from run menu or auto association to files. The second case is automatically sorted, the first case, I just type notepad++ in the run box instead of notepad.
I’m not sure why but when I replaced the notepad.exe in the given order it did not work. However when I went in the OPPOSITE order it worked fine. Just my 2 cents :)
Love it! Works like a charm (I didn’t copy to first folder, just the last three as per the readme).
Notepad++ rocks! Thanks.
It doesnt seem to work for me, i dont have the
c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386
directory…
I use Notepad++ in conjunction with Expresso religiously. Expresso is a regex builder, so if you feel limited at all by the regex or even just search and replace functionality in Notepad++, then I highly recommend Expresso, too. They’re both free, and some of the best tools in my toolbox.
c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386 is ‘a location that is unavailable’ on my system. I can access the 3 others but not this, and it didn’t work even tough the ‘readme’ file with the download only states the last 3. Any ideas please?
Raymond,
There’s this bug in NP++ in Search and replace, The search string doesnt populate with the whole text (only a max of some 10-15 chars) when you select a text and press Ctrl + H.
Pretty used feature. Time for the fix :)
And yes its good. I’ve been using this for a month now.
Hey Ray,
I tried to follow you’re guide, but when I want to place the launcher in the windows (sub)folder it gives me an error that I’m not authorised to do that. How can I bypass this?
Grtz
I like Programmers Notepad 2 better, but it’s all about choise in this world :)
/ZoRo
Then you should like the latest Notepad++ v5.0 even more because it has performance improvement on startup and exit
Hey Raymond i’ve been using Notepad++ for long n its really good……….
Thanks Raymond.
Nope it’s free version.
its a trial version