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Small free and replacement for Notepad

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Do you still use Notepad that ships with Windows?

I did, until I found NotePad2, it’s fast, it’s easy to use, and more to the point it works.

I’ve been using it for the past 2 months, and I have not got any clue to the features, but what I like about it is it just works and is a very good replacement for the standard Windows Notepad. 

Here are the features, cribbed from the NotePad2 Website:

Customizable syntax highlighting: 

  • HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript, ASP, PHP, CSS, Perl/CGI
  • C/C++, C#, Java, VB, Pascal, Assembler, SQL, Python, NSIS
  • INI, REG, INF, BAT, DIFF
  • Drag & drop text editing inside and outside Notepad2
  • Basic regular expression search and replace
  • Useful word, line and block editing shortcuts
  • Rectangular selection (Alt+Mouse)
  • Brace matching, auto indent, long line marker, zoom functions
  • Support for Unicode, UTF-8, Unix and Mac text files
  • Open shell links
  • Mostly adjustable
  • Auto indentation
  • Bracket matching
  • Encoding conversion between ASCII, UTF-8 and UTF-16 formats
  • Multiple undo/redo; rectangular block selection
  • Newline conversion, between DOS (CR/LF), Unix (LF) and Mac (CR) formats 

How to Replace notepad with notepad2 in Vista?

  1. First you need to download notepad2 from here
  2. First you need to Rename Notepad2.exe to notepad.exe.
  3. Find c:\windows\notepad.exe and c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe and set the owner to ‘Administrators’, and grant Administrators full control.
  4. Using Windows Explorer, drag and drop the renamed notepad2.exe to c:\windows and c:\windows\system32.
  5. Optional replace the permissions on the new notepad.exe to Read & Execute and Read.
 
Another one to look at is Notepad++, it has a lovely set of plugins such as XML have a look at Tim Almonds post on the XML plugin