Thanks for the tip. I also use Notepad2, and I had no problem replacing Notepad with it on XP or XP x64 Edition. Your tip worked like a charm. Just for anybody else out there, if you’re running a 64-bit build of Vista (or XP), you should also replace the notepad.exe found in c:\windows\syswow64.

Thanks Matt!

Cheers for this. I was despairing of being able to do this (not understanding ownership) but then I realized that early adopters of Vista were precisely the type of people who would 1) want to replace notepad and 2) be able to figure it out. A little Google, and no problem

Excellent. So much easier than the XP pains we had to go through. Thanks

[...] Sul sito di Matt Berther invece si trova una soluzione… alternativa… si prende come esempio Notepad2, e lo si sostituisce fisicamente al Notepad di Windows Vista. E’ una breve guida, in inglese. Replacing Notepad in Windows Vista [...]

[...] Now, I just read a post on Omar’s blog about Notepad2 again and he listed off the four simple steps to take to do what’s needed to really have it replace the old Notepad on Vista. He actually found out about it from another blog (here’s that post too). Either one has the steps and you can download Notepad2 from here too (note there’s a new version out). [...]

[...] 3 yillik bir aranin ardindan notepad2 yenilenmi$, artik ruby icinde syntax highlighting yapiyor.(changelog) xp’de notepad yerine koymak kolay olsa da vista’da nasil yapilabilecegini bulamami$tim fakat $urada notepad yerine nasil replace edilecegi anlatiliyor.(vista’yi bo$una silmi$im ;)) April 26, 2007 18:47 [...]

[...] Notepad2 ima poleg omenjenih še precej drugih možnosti, ki nam pri delu pridejo prav. Sam lahko rečem da dokler nisem izvedel zanje jih niti nisem pogrešal, sedaj pa kar ne morem shajati brez njih. Zato sem z uporabo določenih posegov lahko originalni Notepad popolnoma nadomestil z Notepad2. Tule so navodila kako to storimo na Windows XP, XP SP2 in Windows Vista. [...]

[...] you use Windows Vista, follow the simple instructions here. [mattberther.com] Quick actions for “Replacing Notepad with Notepad2″:  Trackback address [...]

nice solution… a question though:
where the heck vista gets the old notepad from when some notepad-viewable files like *.reg or *.txt for ex. are opened by selecting “Edit” option in the context menu using explorer?
(Vista x64)

I have changed ownership on notepad.exe files. Unfortunately, I get “Folder Permission Denied” if I copy in Explorer and “Access denied” if I try to do it from command line with administrator rights.

Alexey,

You still have to change the permissions on the file after you change ownership. The “grant Administrators full control” part of step 3 above probably could’ve been a separate step.

Is it possible to soft link the exe file? I keep notepad2 in c:\tools and would like to keep it there..

akaine >> there’s another one in C:\Windows\SysWOW64

Why notepad2 puts the microprocessor to 50 % in windows vista?

[...] I ran into an issue with overwriting the original notepad due to a lack of permissions. I found Matt Berther’s article which helped me understand what files needed to be overwritten for use in Vista. While I ran into [...]

[...] The installation file weighs in at 247KB, a small amount of data for such a feature-rich notepad. Another bonus is you can also replace the default Notepad that comes with windows with Notepad2, which you can view howto’s for Windows XP and Windows Vista. [...]

[...] Replacing Notepad in Windows Vista [...]

can you guys explain it step by step? how do i set the owner in vista 64-bit?

“Set, View, Change, or Remove Special Permissions” i’ve checked this but the “add” button is greyed out.

can someone make simple 1, 2, 3, 4 that is ‘more’ elaborate than the original post? also how do i set up the ini permissions? word wrap settings are never saved between sessions. thanks

3a. right-click > properties > security > click “advanced” > owner > select “administrators” > click “apply/ok” > click “ok” on each window to exit.

3b. right-click > properties > security > click “edit” > select “administrators” > select the “full control” check box > click “ok” on each window to exit.

wasn’t so hard to give a bit more detail was it? or make a batch file. suppose it was too much effort!

Thanks to Matt on the tutorial to how to replace Notepad2 for the old boring Notepad. For a newbie like me, was very easy.
I love better the color syntax of Notepad2

Thanks kipp for fleshing out those steps. I’m a Vista newb and needed the extra help. :)

Some windows updates will overwrite notepad2.exe so you may have to do the whole process over again. Bill should just buy notepad2.exe and make it part of Windows.

I followed the steps but every time I start Notepad my settings are not saved…I have to reset them every time, did I do something wrong?

You have to run notepad.exe as root (the ’super administrator’ in Vista) to save settings.

Unfortunately, Vista does not allow compatibility mode to be set for notepad.exe in the Windows directory. If you need to change and save program settings often, it may be better to put Notepad2.exe in program files and tell Windows to use Notepad2.exe instead of notepad.exe for text files and the like.

To ensure notepad2 can save setting changes copy notepad.ini into the system32 folder and allow users modify control of the notepad.ini. I myself just gave user full control and I tested a change and it held fine.

[...] Ihr einfach nur das Paket entpacken und die replace.cmd ausführen. Vista Nutzer lesen sich das [...]

[...] Ihr einfach nur das Paket entpacken und die replace.cmd ausführen. Vista Nutzer lesen sich das [...]

There is another way to do this without replacing Microsoft’s version of Notepad, which will keep working pretty much forever:

Save the following script as D:\Utilities\ExecuteNotepadIFEO.js (after updating the path to Notepad2.exe in this script):

— START SCRIPT —

if( WScript.Arguments.length>0 )
{
var shell=new ActiveXObject(”WScript.Shell”);
var args=”";

for( i=1; i<WScript.Arguments.Length; i++ )
{
args+=WScript.Arguments(i)+” “;
}

shell.Exec(”D:\\Utilities\\notepad2.exe ” + args);
}

— END SCRIPT —

Then save the following as Notepad2.reg (after making sure the path to the .js file exists:

— START REG —

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\notepad.exe]
“Debugger”=”wscript D:\\Utilities\\ExecuteNotepadIFEO.js”

— END REG —

And like magic, any attempt to execute anything named notepad.exe will start up notepad2. (The .js script is needed to strip off arguments that shouldn’t be passed to notepad2).

[...] Ihr einfach nur das Paket entpacken und die replace.cmd ausführen. Vista Nutzer lesen sich das [...]

@kipp,
thanks, What gives? For what we need complicate setting batch.
We dont need script. We need brain for setting!!

kelvin

[...] müsst Ihr einfach nur das Paket entpacken und die replace.cmd ausführen. Vista Nutzer lesen sich das [...]

[...] about replacing notepad with notepad2, the following steps worked for me on Windows [...]

[...] about replacing notepad with notepad2, the following steps worked for me on Windows [...]

I have created a script which will install notepad2 and backup notepad. Just make a batch file with the following lines in and save it into the extracted notepad2 folder.

Cheers, Chris

takeown /f c:\windows\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F
takeown /f c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F

COPY c:\windows\notepad.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe.bak
COPY c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe.bak

COPY Notepad2.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe
COPY Notepad2.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe

If you want to remember the settings you will have to change the permissions of the settings.ini file also.

Thanks for the workaround! Now there’s gotta be one for Wordpad ;)

chris colden has it exactly right. to specify, his method worked for me in vista ultimate sp1 x86

in the folder you extracted notepad2.exe to… make a new text file and rename it replace.bat … open this text file with notepad and put in the following text:

takeown /f c:\windows\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F
takeown /f c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F

COPY c:\windows\notepad.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe.bak
COPY c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe.bak

COPY Notepad2.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe
COPY Notepad2.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe

… then save, close the window, and run the file. it will prompt you to replace, so youll press “y” twice. thanks again chris

Thanks darco, works perfectly! :)

Thanks a lot Matt, it works perfectly.

Greatz

Steve

Thanks Chris! The commands worked perfectly once I found out that UAC had to be disabled and the system rebooted first. Below is an updated version of the batch file that I successfully used on my Vista x64 Ultimate install:
=================================================================

rem START BATCH COMMANDS
rem USER ACCOUNT CONTROL (UAC) MUST BE TURNED OFF AND SYSTEM REBOOTED **FIRST** BEFORE THIS WILL WORK!
rem If you are using VISTA x32 version, then close this window BEFORE continuing and edit this file by putting “rem ” in front of every line that contains the text “syswow64″. Then run this file again.
@echo off
PAUSE

takeown /f c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F

takeown /f c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F

takeown /f c:\windows\notepad.exe
cacls c:\windows\notepad.exe /G Administrators:F

copy c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe.backup
copy c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe.backup
copy c:\windows\notepad.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe.backup

copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\syswow64\notepad.exe
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\system32\notepad.exe
copy notepad2.exe c:\windows\notepad.exe
@echo on
rem END BATCH COMMANDS

Doesn’t seem to work on windows 7 (there is a “TrustedUser” who seems to have all the rights)

To replace the files in Windows 7, take ownership of the notepad.exe-file in SysWOW64 and System32, then add write/modify-permissions to Administrators and simply copy it over.
I ran explorer.exe as administrator too, so if above doesn’t work run explorer.exe as administrator.

On Windows 7 the replacement by mentioned scripts work, as long as the .bat or .cmd file is ran as Administrator.

I also had to copy Notepad2.ini to C:\Windows folder and grand full permission to my userID to assure Setting changes of Notepad2 settings get saved.

Replace a System Program without Modifying System Files or Permissions

uses ‘Image File Execution Options’ registry key

Full tutorial and sample scripts here

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/244527-programs-replace-system-program-without-modifying-system-files-permissions.html