Upgrade your Notepad Video

Upgrade your Notepad Video Transcript

>> Are you ever little disappointed with Windows Notepad? You wish you could do a little more, maybe pickup after itself. Well, I'm Tom Merritt from CNET.com and on this edition of Insiders Secrets I'm gonna show you how to upgrade the Notepad on your PC. ^M00:00:14 [ Music ] ^M00:00:25

>> Notepad2 is a free download that's very small, entirely free and has more functions than the Notepad that comes with Windows. Here's how to add it to your computer. Download it from your favorite download site and unzip it to your desktop. Change the name from Notepad2 to Notepad. Now a little warning: You are about to mess with the system files, so be careful. Don't do it if you're not comfortable. Comfy? Okay. Open up My Computer and then the hard drive where Windows is installed. Go to the Tools, then Folder Options and find the Setting called Hide Protected Operating Systems and uncheck it. Now go to the Windows directory to System 32 Directory and rename notepad.exe to something else like notepadX.exe or notepadold.exe. That way you still have the old Notepad if you need it. However, Windows is gonna try to automatically restore its original Notepad if you just copy the new one. We can prevent that. Go into dllcache, copy the Notepad you renamed on the desktop into that folder. That replaces the copy of Notepad that Windows restores from -- clever eh? Go back up to the System 32 Directory. Copy the Notepad from the desktop into that directory too. Press Cancel on that dialogue box. If you're worried about seeing hidden files, you can go back into the tools section and re-check Hide Hidden system folders. Shout out to Omar Shahine who runs the blog where I found Shaquille Mahatel's [presumed spelling] method for doing this. It takes a village. That's it for this Insider Secret, I'm Tom Merritt for CNET.com, enjoy your new Notepad. ^M00:02:10 [ Music ]