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Comment by voidUpdate | Hacker News Reader

I found a copy of the win98 (I believe) notepad.exe a while back, and it works perfectly on windows 11 (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??). I can write text into it, save it, and load text again. What more does notepad need? And it has a very nostalgic font too

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Win9x Notepad in particular can only load files up to 64KB in size (edit: and supports only ANSI encoding, no Unicode). There were some actually useful additions to it up until Windows 10 or so - for example being able to handle LF (in addition to CRLF) line endings. But yeah, everything added in Windows 11 is just pure bloat.

The reason being it is a plain text edit component, with a window around it, hence the limitation.

Yep. Back when I used to teach Windows programming in C commercially, the course exercise was to replicate notepad. It was surprising how many of its features you could implement in a week-long course, especially as many of our clients were no great shakes at C.

I think it is more surprising how many deeper features were hidden in Notepad (I did a complete re-implementation using MFC for Windows CE).

Did you implement .LOG and Unicode support with BOM handling?

This was on Windows 3.1. I don't think the version of notepad there had any Unicode support - certainly the one in our training course didn't; I didn't feel up to teaching C, the Windows API _and_ Unicode. It was just a slightly realistic exercise where our clients could implement as much or as little as they felt happy with, making use of standard windows controls as much as possible.

I find notepad useful for sanitising clipboard content.

No bold text, italics, bullet points, invisible html.. Just get the text and can copy it to paste again somewhere else.

Ala Cmd+Shift+V on Mac

You can Ctrl+shift+v to paste plain text in windows.

In some cases. In others, the application does whatever it wants.

And funnily enough, Office for Mac doesn’t allow you to do this, or at least it didn’t used to. I think I may’ve just noticed that it’s started working.

Doesn’t work for me. The absolute most infuriating thing is that copying text out of OneNote pastes as AN IMAGE. The only way around this is sanitizing the text in a notepad on the host machine itself.

> application does whatever it wants

Obsidian has a mildly infuriating default of opening previews with ctrl shift v keys instead of pasting with no formatting.

I somewhat regularly use the almost embarrassing key sequence Ctrl-C Ctrl-L Ctrl-V Ctrl-A Ctrl-X to sanitize text I’ve copied from a browser, using the address field to remove any formatting.

I explicitly stopped this habit so that I don't accidentally do it with sensitive data I don't want to go to my search engine provider's auto complete API.

Disabling remote search autocomplete is one of the first things I do when I setup a new browser instance. It's a privacy and security nightmare I don't want.

Same here. And I just noticed yesterday that Firefox had added and enabled a "Suggestions from sponsors" feature. Which I've now disabled, but presumably it's been sending anything I type into the address bar to Mozilla since 2021. I am tired of Mozilla but Chrome is very much worse.

ETA: I only noticed yesterday because a "sponsored suggestion" popped up when I was typing, which I've not seen before. So either they actually enabled it recently, or advertisers don't bid on the kinds of things I usually type.

ctrl-k is for the search box

ctrl-l is for the address box

At most I want the address box to do is look up a dns name. Which can still be a risk if I were to hit "enter" with sensitive information which could in some cases get pushed out to my DNS provider (which is me, but then it's possible the address would be pushed out to another resolver, and will also be logged in an unexpected place)

> Disabling remote search autocomplete

I've always have a suspicion that even with auto complete off, some sort of telemetry or obscure feature is still leaking browser address bar text.

I do a similar thing but use the start menu search, Ctrl-C, WIN, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-A, Ctrl-X. You can do it all in one hand and can get really fast, assuming the start menu doesn't lag behind. There's also the downside that it publishes all of your clipboard content to Bing search so maintain vigilance for confidential data...

Have you tired using the run action instead to clean the data? Win+r

This reminds me of the 'spacebar heating' xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1172/

I've been using Win+R to paste it in the windows run box.

Amazingly still works on Win 11 and still seems to keep it local (bypassing the windows search), so I'm pleased to report consistent results for 30 ish years.

Of course, now I've mentioned it out loud, it'll be the next thing to go...

I don't know if it's just me being old and grumpy, but everything windows 8 and later (server 2003) seems like half-baked, unfinished enshittification. Trying to do something even vaguely "advanced" to a network adapter puts me back in windows 95 land along with the run box. The "manage" pane with device & disk manager and logs is from a totally bygone era yet it seems to still be the only way of getting that information. The worst bit is, I'm not complaining. All the bits that look and feel like they've been forgotten since Windows 2000 are the easiest, least infuriating bits of the system I interact with.

I use Edge’s address bar to de-wrap long URLs that have line wrapping and indentation in a proprietary packaging system’s SBOM. I paste in, then copy out the unwrapped URL to another application.

I always used browser address bar for that. But giving it a second thought, I uploaded the data to Google servers.

I have my firefox browser configured to keep using a separate search field and not make search queries in the url bar. It annoys a lot my partner if I let her use my computer to check something but it is frictionless once you unlearn bad habits.

I use the Run dialog (Win+R) for this.

Win+r, ctrl+v, ctrl+a, ctrl+x, esc does this without spawning a non ephemeral window

Unfortunately this has a 260 character limit.

Interesting and valid point. TIL!

Notepad is so slow at loading large files that it crashing quickly is a feature.

The windows 7-10 versions that could open anything would just get stuck for half an hour when you opened the wrong thing in them, which was rather annoying.

I extracted out notepad.exe, calc.exe and mspaint.exe from Windows 7. I use them on Windows 11. They work perfectly.

Might as well just use Windows 7 if the security surface is this bad on later windows.

Windows 7 market share was actually growing for a while according to:

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk...

Not sure what caused the inflection point in December 2025.

wonder if it was dumping off windows 10 machines or lay offs that did it.

I have the mspaint.exe from the same version too :P. It complains about registry stuff on launch but other than that it works fine. There's no spray can in the modern paint!

I like paint shop pro, I use 4.12.

I need to just break down and find an old version of that... from before the Jasc sellout. IIRC, it ran via Wine without issue too.

I try to use Pinta/Paint.Net, but it's not quite as good as I remember psp being. I don't even hate the newer MS Paint... thought I'm only on windows for my work environment and even then.

Aside: I've been using my personal computer more, so I can work on a limited surface with docker and ai agent, then just bring in the components I'm working on when ready. My work environment is really locked down, no wsl, no docker... and it's like working in 2002 to some extent... It's literally easier for me to create stand-alone projects, work on a given feature in complete isolation... AI agent mostly to boilerplate the environment and most of the automated sanity tests, then I can focus on just what I'm working on.

If you don't mind using a browser, Photopea is pretty awesome: https://www.photopea.com/

They also added strange hacked on half-support for alpha-transparency in modern MS Paint. Meaning there is an alpha layer, and imported staff may utilize it, but if you need to do anything with that layer, you're basically SOL.

Better to have no alpha-transparency than whatever this is. At least old Paint just turned it white, and you could manipulate the white layer, with this working with the alpha layer is a nightmare.

Why does it show registry error?

I copied out mspaint.exe and some resource files as well were needed.

It runs for me without error.

No idea. Probably because I'm on a work machine and need admin permission to make registry changes or something

For those of you on macOS who still want to benefit from arguably the best drawing application ever conceived, https://jspaint.app/ is THE way. Use it all the time when editing screenshots.

Bonus point: that Windows 95 style "error" beep when pasting too large image. Always sends the shiver down the spine and confuses the coworkers around (we're an all-Mac shop).

my favorite "easter egg" hidden behind File -> Exit menu item of jspaint.app... I still remember how it blew my mind the first time I saw it!

This wet my eyes. The times...

Kind of a weird feeling that in order to get the better Windows 11 experience one requires programs from four operating system versions earlier.

Windows 11 also takes a huge amount of time to get working as i intend. I have to remove a lot of 'features' and heavily optimize some processes. It's stable and it works, but i'm getting more and more annoyed by it that upcoming updates sometimes destroy all my effort.

Kinda wish i could run everything my family wants on Debian. I know i could do that right now, but the wife and kids will never get used to that if they have to use Microsoft products in their working and school life.

I’d wish to use Linux.

But some things just don’t run there (properly).

Like Assetto Corsa EVO or SimHub.

When was the last time you tried it? Assetto Corsa EVO has a Gold rating on ProtonDB[1] and apparently SimHub also works fine, according to the SimHub forums[2].

[1] https://www.protondb.com/app/3058630 [2] https://www.simhubdash.com/community-2/simhub-support/guide-...

Yes, I know that they might work just fine on Linux.

But… ACC EVO is alpha at the moment. It barely runs without bugs on Windows. It’s just less hassle on Windows.

The alpha stage is the best time to test if it also works via Wine or Proton -- while you can still give feedback to the devs about it.

Probably the only good thing about Google Docs becoming so popular in school/education use... All you need is a current Chromium based browser mostly.

The Web versions of Office, err MS 365, err CoPilot App.. (OMG!>!!>) ... aren't so bad to use in a Linux browser either.

> All you need is a current Chromium based browser mostly.

Google Docs works fine for me in Firefox as well.

> Kinda wish i could run everything my family wants on Debian. I know i could do that right now, but the wife and kids will never get used to that if they have to use Microsoft products in their working and school life.

You won't know until you try. My mum used all versions of Windows from 3.1 till Windows 7. She hated Windows 8, and that's when I decided to switch her to Linux (with XFCE) - and she felt the UI was a lot more familiar to her than Windows 8. I recently showed her a few screenshots of Windows 11, and she finds her current desktop (now on KDE) a lot more familiar than Windows 11. Same with Office, she prefers the older style toolbar of LibreOffice than the ribbon UI of modern versions Office.

So maybe install it on a spare device as a trial and see how they like it?

I feel bad for anyone at MS who thought these applications needed anything more than bugfixes. Welcome to the Notepad team, the entire world would be better off it you did nothing at all!

I just don't get why they didn't just add these features to WordPad, where it would at least make more sense.

There used to be a website that has these installable.

Update - it's just the games; I thought it had notepad and calc as well

> (though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??)

It's because the program just calls a Windows API to display the version dialog of Windows itself.

Specifically, ShellAbout: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/shellapi...

How do you edit notes using Microsoft Copilot 365 for Notepad Copilot using that version?

How do you write without being able to read with that version?

Windows 11 still includes the old notepad.exe in its Windows directory [0]. Windows just “helpfully” redirects it to the new app if you try to run it. You have to turn that off in Settings under “App execution aliases”. Then you get the old Notepad.

[0] In the unlikely case that it isn’t there, you can add it through System > Optional Features > Add an optional feature.

Also, delete the key NoOpenWith under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Applications\notepad.exe to enable file associations.

you can also just uninstall the "new" notepad, at which point Windows will let you run the old one again (which is still shipped!).

By using a version that is _that_ old you do lose out on some of the actually useful updates legacy nodepad received, such as LF line ending support.

What? Did they accidentally revert the improvements they already made to previously shipped versions of the old notepad program?

I think it's in reference to using Win9x notepad.exe as opposed to somewhere in the Win7-10 timeframe before they went over the top in Win11.

Ah, yes, I misread it as the newer versions shipping an older notepad.

> What more does notepad need?

Most of the features that were added in later versions: unicode, tabs, auto-reload, support for large files. CTRL+S is also nice.

> What more does notepad need?

AI! It needs AI. Did I guess it right?

Affermative. You have unlocked the following achievement: "Get a head start of 45 minutes when we start destroying humanity".

Since there'll be nowhere to run, could I be one the first? Don't wanna have to deal with the hassle of having to watch my loved ones being chased down.

Agreed. Your achievement has been revoked effective immediately.

I feel vindicated by reverting to the old windows 10 notepad.exe

Apparently windows 11 still ships with classic notepad?

https://github.com/christian-korneck/classic-windows-notepad

Notepad always used to be essentially the standard MFC multiline text editor control in a window.

Wordpad was the same but a rich text editor control.

There’s very little need for it to have ever become more.

If you go that far, metapad (from 98) is still better than notepad ever was. Also loads 100k lines files quickly.

> though the "about notepad" dialog shows the windows 11 version for some reason??

For many built in windows apps, the 'about this program' menu item just invokes a separate program, 'winver'. If you go Start -> Run and type in winver, it does the same thing.

Get notepad.exe from reactos' nightly ISO, it's in reactos.cab

Extract both the ISO and reactos.cab wth 7zip.

It needs far more features apparently. Tons more. That's why Notepad++ is popular. Which also had a severe security vulnerability recently. Which was actively exploited by some state actor like China.

That recent Notepad++ incident was a supply chain attack, not a vulnerability in the original program.

Strictly, no. But it was a vulnerability in the design of Notepad++, key elements here being the featureset that requires frequent updates and the lack of integrity checks during the upgrade process.

This has prompted me to move on from Notepad++ - it's sad, because I've used it for many years, but this is too much.

> in the design of Notepad++

One could argue it's an issue with windows where you can't just pull updates using a package manager/app store.

You can if you use the windows store. It's just that you usually install things outside of that, unlike in linuxes where you generally use the package manager that can handle updates for you

Plus Windows Store is not supported on all version of Windows particularly Datacenter versions - your most valuable assets !!

You can jump through a couple hoops to get WinGet working in Windows Server environments without much issue. IIRC, there's a single PS1 script you can run to do it, followed by a reboot.

There’s a real problem trying to use the store with command line tools as they don’t use Windows standards for installing things but create GUID folders under your profile instead, which means your path has to be full of garbage or you have to create a lot of aliases.

I'm not sure who I trust less to handle package integrity, the 3rd party hosting provider that Notepad++ used, or Microsoft.

A little tongue-in-cheek, but it's also an issue with windows, that it's owned by an untrustworthy company.

The third party hosting provider had nothing to do with package integrity, that was under Notepad++ control and basically they had none. The real issue is every company or application creating their own Internet update system.

Pretty sure winget does let you do that.

Recently, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Microsoft Store has a built-in CLI with that exact functionality. You just run `store updates` to check for updates to store-managed apps, and you can target specific items with `store update <update-id>`. Of course, there's also winget for non-store applications (`winget upgrade`). I find them pretty handy as I have become quite used to managing my Linux installations with pacman over the past year or so. I discovered the store CLI completely by accident. It's not widely advertised.

I am driving an Ubuntu installation because it's what's my current employer mandates and coming from arch it feels like going back to Windows. Oh-my-zsh, opencode, gemini-cli, bun, pyenv, nvm... All installed with curl | bash which is not as bad as a .exe or .msi -- those are scripts you can still easily inspect -- but it's also bypassing the pkg manager.

But I guess that's what you get when you fragment your ecosystem in apt, snap and gnome extension manager. I need to master nix asap.

You mean like WinGet? or the Windows Store?

The OS provided option can be bare bones, stable, secure and just utilitarian. This promotes having people choose their own tools for the features they want and not really expecting much other than reliability from the OS version. They didn’t need to mess with a good thing.

Ok, tabs, I do like the tabs.

Support for Unix line endings at the very least.

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