Windows Former Microsoft engineer shrinks Notepad down to size

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Microsoft's habit of adding unnecessary features to Notepad is a symptom of broader bloating in the Windows codebase. But it is possible to go back to basics with a version of the editor that fits in less than 3 kilobytes.

Former Microsoft engineer Dave Plummer comes from an era at Microsoft when Notepad handled the simple stuff, and WordPad handled everything else. "We had some clear rules," said the Task Manager author on his YouTube channel, Dave's Garage. "Notepad was for plain text. WordPad was for RTF. And we were taught how important it was to never cross the streams.

"So, Notepad stayed lean. WordPad got the fancy fonts, the spell check, and, for all I know, a recipe card feature."

A few decades on, things are very different. WordPad is no more, and Notepad has endured multiple indignities as features have been piled onto it. Heck, it will even come up with Copilot-powered suggestions to tweak writing.

Plummer is less than keen on the current iteration of Notepad, "so I rebuilt it from scratch. 2.5 kilobytes. No bloat. No telemetry. No nonsense. Just pure old school Windows done right."

The result is TinyRetroPad, a fork of Dave's Tiny Editor (DTE) by Matt Power.

www.theregister.com

Former Microsoft engineer shrinks Notepad down to size

Rolling back the years and the bloat for veteran text editor
www.theregister.com www.theregister.com
 
Not sure if its just me, but I've definitely noticed the bloat. Notepad is my go-to app for basically most text-viewing or notekeeping (obviously). I completely forgot about WordPad too, I never felt a major need to use it for much. Once I need extra formatting or viewing a lot of code I usually just run files thru Notepad++, lol. Hell, I miss the old version of MS Paint, I don't care much for the newer versions.
 
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  • Varine Varine:
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  • Varine Varine:
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  • Varine Varine:
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  • Varine Varine:
    Like yeah I can tell. I don't need to fucking know.
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    So now he's getting scrutinized and will not be top of the list. I know I don't have the smartest people but I do expect them to have some common fucking sense
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    I did do a rare thing for me and hire a girl last month without warning. Everyone was made at me because I started her at like 21, but she worked with me before and I was like don't care. She made 19 at her old job and I wanted her to come work with me, she is the best
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    Eventually we'll get it balanced, we'
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    we're starting online orders and stuff, but I also turn that off all the time because I barely keep up trying to be the best at Sysco shit
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    They won't get feel down while they do the thermometer, but we didn't have an instant read probe when I was learning. Like they did but god knows how off it is, you HAD to do it by feel. Even if the chef was fine with me bringing my own, it takes too long. Poke and know
  • The Helper The Helper:
    420 threads in the Artificial Intelligence forum :)
  • The Helper The Helper:
    Happy Monday!
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    and then it was Tuesday!
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  • The Helper The Helper:
    Do we want to use this instead of chatbox https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2026/07/16/microsoft-comic-chat-is-now-open-source/ :)
  • The Helper The Helper:
    fyi I am going out of town to lake somewhere in bfe texas for the weekend will be gone Friday morning to sunday afternoon for a paranormal thing and some rest peace

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