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TZubiritoday at 10:37 AM6 repliesview on HN

EDIT: THE OLD NOTEPAD IS STILL IN WINDOWS AND WE CAN USE IT!

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/3845356/...

You basically have to find the "execution alias" setting and disable notepad and you get the ole reliable :D

OLD POST:

This has hurt me specifically. Since I work without IDEs, no VIM, no vs code. On linux I use nano, on windows I use Notepad. I like the minimalism and the fact that I have absolute control, and that I can work on any machine without needing to introduce an external install.

Last couple of years notepad started getting more features, but I'm very practical so I just ignored them, logged out of my account when necessary, opted out of features in settings, whatever.

But now this moment feels like I must change something, we need a traditional notepad.exe or just copy it from a previous version, I'll try adding NOTEPAD.exe to a thumb drive and having that. But it's a shame that it breaks the purity of "working with what's installed".


Replies

BLKNSLVRtoday at 11:23 AM

I had a USB that I carried around with me with a whole bunch of portable apps on it. That allowed me to have some kind of "standard environment" I could rely on.

I've since migrated to Linux 100% (outside of work) and whilst there are the odd annoyances, it's been a breath of fresh air compared to Windows. And I can have a good chuckle almost once a week these days with each new Windows consumer hostility coming across the HN front page.

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MonkeyClubtoday at 11:20 AM

> the purity of "working with what's installed".

Oh, a kindred spirit!

I too absolutely love the notion of the base install, and what can be done just by means of its already available toolset.

(Fun tidbit: Did you know Windows comes with a bare bones C# 5 toolchain, with csc.exe, and even vbc.exe and jsc.exe?)

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Baerbeissertoday at 1:41 PM

There's still old tiny Metapad. And also more modern and fully featured (but still light) Notepad 2/3/4 and Notepad++. For full replacement, i just renamed all instances to notepad.exe.bak, back then on Windows 7 & 10, and rename-replaced it with metapad.exe. Though, i guess with UWP apps (modern Notepad is one), it's just file associations nowadays. There's surely some mass-reassociate utility around?

Btw, nano is only 50/50 chance that's it's pre-installed. Learn some vim, will ya? ;)

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autoexectoday at 10:43 AM

EDIT.COM still works in dosbox

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funnybeamtoday at 12:32 PM

Except it keeps reverting to the new notepad every few days….

I’ve been fighting this for the last couple of weeks but it just doesn’t stick

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obliotoday at 11:35 AM

> This has hurt me specifically. Since I work without IDEs, no VIM, no vs code. On linux I use nano, on windows I use Notepad. I like the minimalism and the fact that I have absolute control, and that I can work on any machine without needing to introduce an external install.

What's your day job? Are you self employed?