Happy that I switched to Linux
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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I'm usually very defensive of Windows. However, a few days ago I wanted to take some notes in Notepad and it kept changing up what I wrote. As this has forever been the most simple text editor imaginable, it took me a good moment to realize, that they implemented auto-correction (which we know is a lie anyways).
The ridiculous thing is, nobody but tech people uses Notepad anyways and I can't imagine that they want these slop features in it. The value of it was the simplicity and that is now lost.
What's funny is that this likely irritated one of Microsofts own devs enough that they said 'fuck all of this' and invented the new cli app called Edit.
It's under 200kb and runs as a standalone binary if you want. Also supports mouse input.
Did I mention it's cross platform?
With the tagline:
A simple editor for simple needs.
Just like original Notepad lol
Well, yes, but actually no. It's more like MS-DOS's EDIT.COM since it runs in a command line / "DOS" window.
In fact, since EDIT.COM went through a couple of distinct variants back in the day, you could say that this is the third variant of it.
The other two being 1) the BASIC-deactivated side of QBASIC.EXE which was an editor and programming language in one, and then 2) a stand-alone, from the ground up, version (with no BASIC to disable) which came along with Win9x / MS-DOS 7.
I keep a copy of the latter in my DOSBox config. It's only 70kB.
WordPad died for this.
Nobody asked for this! FFS, can megacorps stop shoving AI into everything. Lucky Charms and scissors will have AI soon enough.
Metapad, y'all
use notepad++ as drop-in replacement.
+1 NPP is the goat
It always struck me as a code editor lite rather than a text editor. If I just want to jot something down, metapad is Notepad without all the Windows bullshit they keep trying to shoehorn.
I use both notepad and ++. I think it fits both worlds of code and text editor. When I am using it I am usually needing to to replace words and other tweaks that are really easy and flexible with ++.
This is also a good choice
It's hard to imagine that Notepad of all things has now been enshittified. On Windows, I only ever use Notepad++, but regular ol' Notepad has been a staple of Windows almost since the beginning. It truly feels like they've finished peeling away what little good remained of what Windows used to be.
It certainly removed my ability to say "Companies are shoehorning AI into everything! I wouldn't be surprised if they do it with Notepad..." as a form of mockery. It was one of the first damned victims.
Edit: I'm genuinely surprised technical people (with appropriate rights on their PCs) still use it, though. I switched to Notepad++ nearly 20 years ago.
Not my Notepad. I prevented the notepad.exe update to the new, shitty version. When windows replaces it, I replace it back.
One of the best features of notepad was that it starts quickly. That feature is now gone. :(
Tbf, some larger file sizes fucked notepad in the ass HARD. Notepad++ does everything right by me.
Yeah why is that? Decade after decade this never really improved. Trying to open a big file in notepad just always brought it to its knees. Why doesn't this shit bother anyone at Microsoft enough to write three lines of code to fix that?
Why does everyone assume that programmers can just go and fix stuff they don't like without getting shot down in performance reviews for lack of focus or for overstepping their authority.
We have a prioritized list of work items coming in from the PO and that's what we work on. There's generally no room for creativity. Supporting larger files in Notepad in particular would increase maintenance costs due to requiring much more complex memory management, and it would label you as not being a team player for increasing complexity for everyone.
Aw come on, leave Notepad alone! It's like the last good Windows program.
It is possible to restore the old notepad.
I didn't include a link because I could not find a non-spammy one, but a search finds a few. I did it on my work PC.
And switching to a FOSS OS is probably preferable, but that's not always possible.
I didn't try, but a lot of those simple old apps were able to just run without any dependencies, and you may be lucky to just be able to copy the .exe from an older system to the new one.
I actually have been enjoying the changes they did to it with new tabs and auto saving so you can reopen without losing anything. But wow, I never saw AI coming to this... I will need to find a way to prevent it from updating. Otherwise, I will also be going back.
Microsoft copied the features you like from notepad++.
The AI slop however, that is all Microsoft.
Yeah, I know. All those ideas weren't new, but I was happy to see them. I use ++ all the time, but i also like notepad just for quick notes. It's fast and lightweight. Today, I was using ++ a lot actually to edit firewall configs and scripts. They both have their place for me, but I will definitely be forced to give it up the day I am greeted with a check out our AI when opening notepad.
For now, these features support English only, making premium AI more accessible and flexible for everyone.
They can't be serious, right?
Does Wordpad still exist? This seems to fit that MO more
No, they just killed it off for 24h2.
But... That's where you'd put this crap. Notepad had one job, and it did it well.
You are correct, but it always caused issues in the tech world. People would show up with a wps and nobody could open it.
Yeah wps is about as good as encryption.
Whoops, I meant rtf.
Ew
As long as it retains its primary task of removing the formatting from text copied off websites.
Can't you do that with most word processors by either ctrl+shift+v or something like 'edit>paste special>paste without formatting'?
so 'hello world' gets a response?