Replace Notepad in Windows 7

If you’re a power user, you probably don’t like the default program used to edit text documents, namely Notepad. It’s been the de-facto text editor in Windows since the beginning of time and hasn’t changed a bit. If you want to replace Notepad in Windows 7 with another text editor like Notepad2, for example, it can be a bit tricky! Luckily for you, I’ve tried out several methods and found one that works!
In this article, I will walk you through the steps to replace the default Windows Notepad with Notepad2. That way, whenever you double-click on a text file or right-click on a file and choose Edit, it will open in Notepad2 automatically! Sweet.

Replace Notepad with Notepad2

Step 1: First, download the latest version of Notepad2 from the link below:
http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
If you have a 64-bit version of Windows, make sure you download the x64 version under Other Modified Versions of Notepad2.
Step 2: Go ahead and extract the files to a folder on your computer. There should be 4 files.

Step 3: Turn off User Account Control in Windows 7. You can read my previous post on how to configure UAC in Windows 7. You need to drag the slider all the way down to Never Notify.

Note that after the whole procedure, you can restore your previous UAC setting. We are only changing it temporarily so that we can replace some system files. Make sure you restart your computer before going to the next step!
Step 4: Now create a new text file using Notepad or whichever text editor you like and paste the following text into it:

rem START BATCH COMMANDS
rem PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT USER ACCOUNT CONTROL (UAC) IS TURNED OFF AND PC HAS BEEN REBOOTED FIRST!
rem If you are using VISTA x32 version, then edit this file first by adding “rem ” in front of every line that contains the phrase “syswow64?. Then run the script 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

Save the file as “replace.bat” or whatever you like, just make sure it has a .BAT extension and not a .TXT extension. Make sure you save the file in the same folder as the one that has the four Notepad2 files we just unzipped.
You can read my earlier post on how to create a batch file, which walks you through the steps of saving it properly.
Before you close the file, however, you need to determine whether you are running Windows 7 64-bit or 32-bit. If you are running 64-bit, you’re set.
If you are running 32-bit Windows, you have to go through the script above and put the word “rem” in front of any line that has “syswow64” anywhere in the line. After doing that, you can save the file.
Step 5: Now run the script by right-clicking on it and choose Run as Administrator. This will help to make sure you don’t get an Access is Denied error during the script.

The script will give you a couple of warning message, just press any key to keep going. Then it will tell you whether or not it was successful in getting access to the notepad system files.
If it says Success and then asks your “Are you sure?”, type in Y and press Enter. You will have to do this three times.

That’s it! If you got the success message three times and typed in Y, Notepad is now replace with Notepad2!
If you for some reason got a failure message that says “Access is Denied”, you might have to manually change the permissions on the Notepad app. The reason why this happens is because the files are protected by the Trusted Installer in Windows 7.
You can read my previous article on how to edit files that are protected by Trusted Installer. Basically, take owernship and then give the Administrators group Full Control.
You have to do this for all instances of the Notepad application. I have listed all the possible locations below for 32 and 64-bit Windows 7.

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

Once you have taken ownership and given Full Control, make sure you restart the computer and then try to run the script again. At this point, it should replace all the files with the Notepad2 files.
Finally, if you want all the settings to be saved for Notepad2, you need to copy the Notepad2.ini file to the C:\Windows folder and give yourself Full Control of that file.