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Where is Notepad in Windows 10? (2015)
- ropiwqefjnpoa 7y agoI've got it pinned in the taskbar next to N++
- willis936 7y agoN++ is really great but what if I want to open text files larger than 4 GB? ;)
- mamon 7y agoOn a single machine? You need a Hadoop cluster for that :-P
- geogra4 7y agoI've been really happy using glogg[0] for that scenario. [0]: https://glogg.bonnefon.org/ https://glogg.bonnefon.org/
- coldpie 7y agoDon't think I've reached that level yet. Admittedly it is a hard game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/230270/N_NPLUSPLUS/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/230270/N_NPLUSPLUS/
- shaan7 7y agovim xD And don't blame me, you didn't say anything about closing it :P
- workthrowaway 7y agowow, just realized some of us have been using shortcuts for so long that we don't know when things get moved. also the "windows" key argument was kinda moot because most keyboard have a key that isn't a "windows" key but works similar...
- giancarlostoro 7y agoI've owned many a keyboard, I don't recall a single one without a Windows key.
- squilliam 7y agoRuggedized keyboards for self-service kiosks don't typically have a windows key or ctrl, alt, and ESC (and if they do there is usually a hardware switch that disables them)
- ninju 7y ago"Ruggedized keyboards for self-service kiosks" does not fall into the category of most keyboards
- jlarocco 7y agoOn the other hand, I have 6 keyboards near my desk and only one has a Windows key. YMMV, I guess
- xnyan 7y agoI have not personally seen a PC keyboard without a windows key for 20 years, YMMV.
- thomasz 7y agoThese keys were not standard before windows 95
- smhenderson 7y agowe don't know when things get moved But did it get moved? The article is from 2015 and I didn't start using 10 until 2018 so I don't know where it was then but as of today I can find Notepad on the Start Menu under Windows Accessories. I feel like that's where it's always been. It's called Windows Accessories now instead of just Accessories but surely that's not enough to confuse people so much? As with most everyone here of course I don't launch it from there, I do Win^R, notepad, enter just like I do for calc, excel and winword. But if I never learned how to do that and always relied on the menu shortcut I feel like it never really moved that far from where it's always been.
- winternett 7y agoBeyond saving anything bigger than a sentence it really has no use. I almost dropped dead in shock to see they updated MS paint to Paint 3D, but then I realized that Its still intentionally limited and severely clunky to encourage you to spend money on Photoshop. :/
- prepend 7y agoI prefer txt files for config and notes. I don’t care about formatting so word or word pad are too much. I also use notepad as my goto “paste without formatting” as it’s typically faster to wash the clipboard through notepad than use whatever “paste special” ui an app has.
- gallexme 7y agoIsn't it in most uis shift key +paste?
- Filligree 7y agoNotepad only supports CRLF, wordpad can read Unix-style files, which is a lot of files even on Windows. A great deal of software was written to unconditionally insert \n. Formatting isn't the only reason to use it. I never bother to try notepad.
- ChrisSD 7y agoI prefer something like notepad++ for config and notes. Syntax highlighting is useful for config files (especially larger ones). The auto storing of unsaved files is great for notes. Many of my notes are temporary but I still want them to survive a reboot when necessary. Plus I find tabs easier to manage when I have a lot of notes and files open. The Windows task switcher becomes awkward in that case.
- smacktoward 7y agoIt's hidden behind Candy Crush.
- gruez 7y ago>Step 1: > Go to Start menu. > Type notepad and press Enter. >I tried Step 1 prior to posting here. It doesn't work! Works for me on the latest windows. Granted, there's no textbox to type into, but it appears when you start typing.
- smacktoward 7y agoVisual cues matter. Lots of people will never realize that typing is an option if they don't see a big visual indicator that says "you can type here."
- ahbyb 7y agoThere's a huge searchbox in the taskbar by default that says "type here to search". You can click there and type "notepad" as well.
- basch 7y agoIf you click the windows key on the keyboard or the task bar, until you start typing, the search field is hidden.
- theandrewbailey 7y agoBut a user wants to search the Start menu, not the taskbar (and who knows what else, Cortana). That's not an obvious way to communicate equivalence.
- baking 7y agoStep 1. In the interest of "simplicity" and hiding details from users, make more and more functionality only available through the search box. Step 2. Move the search box to an annoying position on the task bar. Step 3. Give users the ability to hide the search box.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zerocrates 7y ago
- darkstar999 7y agoThis is a non-story. Start menu -> Windows Accessories -> Notepad Am I missing something?
- wheelie_boy 7y agoYes, the story is not that notepad is in some weird place in windows 10 - it is still where most HN readers know to find it. The story is about how regular people deal with computers, as can be read in the comments. It's like that story about how one day the google search 'facebook login' took people to a forum page that let people comment using their facebook credentials, and we got to find out how many users just type 'facebook login' to whatever text field they run across, type their username and password in, and then get really confused when it's a random forum page and they can't see their normal feed.
- jermaustin1 7y agoI forgot all about that.
- brianpgordon 7y agoIs it in a weird place though? Notepad has been under Start -> Accessories since the debut of the start menu in Windows 95. The only change is naming the folder Windows Accessories instead of Accessories.
- y2bd 7y agoSeems like a pretty big change to me. Not only has the folder name changed with no indicator that it has changed, but now since it's "W" instead of "A", it's near the bottom instead of at the very top. Plus, Windows 10 now has /way/ more pre-installed applications, which means you have to do a lot of scrolling before you get all the way to the "W" section.
- Nition 7y agoIf you even realise you can scroll! Without using a mouse wheel, there's just that tiny thin black scrollbar.
- galaxyLogic 7y ago1. Open Start-menu 2. Scroll left-pane down to W and click Windows Accessories 3. Click Notepad In other words: StartMenu -> Windows Accessories -> Notepad This may have something to do with that people don't learn to use Windows since they are mostly using their Android phones anyway.
- komali2 7y agoThis is a pretty fun submission. I like peering into the lives of computer users that don't have the level of computer literacy I'm used to day to day. It's a good reminder. > This answer is not helpful. There is no start button. Because it's just a little windows icon now - easy to forget that that doesn't just make sense to some people. > Thank you, Brian- I would surely never have looked there, for anything, never mind notepad! It is on my start box now. Some people just haven't/won't learned the grammar and vocabulary of computer literacy. I think this person means "start menu?" But it looks like a box to them so that's how they described it. A while ago there was an article where a woman was trying to user testing in a mall and instead found an old guy who had literally never touched a computer. Reading that experience was fascinating.
- Filligree 7y ago> A while ago there was an article where a woman was trying to user testing in a mall and instead found an old guy who had literally never touched a computer. Reading that experience was fascinating. I missed that article. It sounds fascinating -- I don't suppose you have a link?
- er3s 7y agoThis was absolutely fascinating... and underscores the fact that the world has little patience for the technically uninitiated. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2740038
- pradn 7y agoThe windows button looks more like a flag than a window, nothing to do with starting anything!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dTal 7y agoThe "Start" button was never really about starting things in the first place. After all, clicking "Start" was the first step to shutting down your computer! Perfectly intuitive... Now it doesn't even say "Start" on it, and yet they persist in calling it the "Start menu".
- ogre_magi 7y agoI have a hard time considering people who aren't natural power-users of technology human. I recognize that this is a failing of mine.
- egypturnash 7y agoYes, Yes, it is. You should probably work on this.
- notadoc 7y agoDo you have elderly friends or relatives? They're often a good reference point.
- carapace 7y agoBrave of you to admit it, even here. I have a similar problem: I'm so goddamned intelligent that this world seems like the movie "Idiocracy" to me. ( I can't watch it: it's too painful. ) When I was younger, this advice from the Book of the Subgenius helped me a lot to get by, "Act like a dumbass and they'll treat you like an equal." Eventually, I calculated the existence of God, called out "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free", and He showed up and Shook my hand. Since then my intelligence has been idling: there's nothing further to compute. That, combined with diligent administration of THC, has brought my general intelligence level down to that of an average smart person. Here's the thing: now that I experience it for myself, normal intelligence is terrifying. It's no wonder everyone is always so stressed out and worried. Their brains are not adequate to the complex artificial world we have built for ourselves. (Are you familiar with the "Peter Principle"? That's what we've done: not promoting people to level their level of incompetence, rather the world has grown complex to the point where most people are now incompetent, through no fault of their own.) Robert Anton Wilson points out, "Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. We have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. We have never seen a totally sane human being." What I'm saying is, pity them, they know not what they do.
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
- DannyB2 7y agoFifteen years ago, one of the Microsoft fanboy arguments against both Linux and LibreOffice (then OpenOffice.org) was that neither worked exactly like Windows / Office. Then Microsoft comes along and changes everything. The Ribbon instead of the pull down menus. Now which office suite works more like what users have used for a couple decades? Windows 8 comes along with a totally different UI. So different that ordinary users don't know how to do the most basic tasks like print, or even how to shut down the computer. Windows 8 UI (no matter what you call it) "fixes" things by adding back a start menu, but not calling it start. No search box in the start menu -- you just have to magically know that you can start typing. And magical key combinations to type in commands. IMO, it really is change for the sake of change. And generally change for the worse. The interface we had with classic Mac, and Win 95 was pretty usable. And stable. (Nevermind the underlying tech it ran on top of, no real kernel, etc.)
- mgraczyk 7y agoFifteen years ago, Windows 95 was only 9 years old. I think changing something 9 years old over the course of 15 years is probably an acceptable speed.
- DannyB2 7y agoWhy after 9 years don't we change from a steering wheel to a steering tiller. Marketing thinks it is the bestest idea. After 9 more years, let's change to steering pedals and use hand controls for acceleration and breaking. (pun) After 9 more years . . . Maybe you see a problem with this progression?
- dpark 7y agoYou might want to go look at some actual early cars. A lot of stuff that’s now standard was not for decades.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wiseleo 7y ago
- zwieback 7y agoIt's surprisingly hard to type instructions that everyone will follow the same way. "Go to the Start menu" is useless. Probably best to shoot videos nowadays.
- octorian 7y agoYeah, and its a good thing that video is now an option. When I was a kid, often in the position of helping old people with computers, there was a major behavior difference I often observed. I looked at the screen "globally", and would identify elements of interest within it. So you could tell me to find something on the screen, and I'd look at the whole screen to spot it. They had a small mental "viewport" (maybe 2"x2") whilst looking up through their bifocals, that they would only be able to notice elements within. So you first had to steer their viewport to the right region of the screen, and only then could tell them what to look for within it. This gets especially frustrating when dealing with a windowed UI that could ostensibly pop up a dialog box anywhere.
- ulises314 7y agoJust wanna point out that notepad is the worst fucking text editor in the entire world, it does a lot of sneaky things with encoding and line endings and alters files without the need of the save command. No wonder why MS wanted to hide the damn thing.
- notadoc 7y agoThis reminds me of trying to explain the "Home" button and Touch ID on an iPhone to an older relative a few years ago. They could not figure out how to reliably unlock the phone and they'd most frequently end up with Siri from holding the button down. Design is how it works...
- Animats 7y agoMicrosoft botched the answer. "Step 1" and "Step 2" are alternatives, not a sequence.
- dyingkneepad 7y agoAnd none of those answers are the path that the most people would do, which is to navigate the start menu with only the mouse.
- deesep 7y ago1184 people have the same question
- RichardCA 7y agoIf I have to support anyone using Windows 10 the first thing I do is recommend they install Classic Shell / Open Shell. The UX on default Windows 10 Start Menu is unacceptable. https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
- cosmodisk 7y agoI started using windows about 25 years ago.It was 3.1 and now my Dell XPS runs on Win 10 and my job is technical. Despite all of this,with every additional release they somewhat manage to make it less and less intuitive and more difficult. There's no logic in so many design decisions- it's mad. Anyone,who's never used a computer doesn't stand a chance nowadays.
- egdod 7y agoWindows 7 was pretty good. Windows 10 is a mess.
- chapium 7y agoI found the transition from 7 to 10 pretty seamless. The only thing I don't like is the alt tab screen, but the original was pretty bad anyway.
- xtracto 7y agoI still think that Win 3.xx files and program visual arrangement and grouping is better than the stupid menus we have now.
- cryptozeus 7y agoIts sad but to find anything on win10 ...just search. How are non power users supposed to know this.
- keyle 7y agoEspecially the search results are non deterministic, order seems to shift, and it's slow at times, and it puts tons of irrelevant crap in it.
- duckqlz 7y agoroflpip
- nickjj 7y agoI think this might be a case where keyboard shortcuts are more descriptive and fool proof than trying to use tech specific phrases like "Go to Start menu". "Hold down the windows key on the keyboard and press the S key while the windows key is held down, and then type notepad and press enter". And if they get hung up finding the windows key on the keyboard you can explain it by saying it's likely near the bottom left in between the ctrl and alt keys and has the 4 squares.
- c3534l 7y agoEveryone is looking down on the users, but they're right. Usually the most correct UI design is the most obvious one, and showing off how clever you are might make the designer feel smart, but it makes the consumer feel dumb. It's one of the reasons I now live almost exclusively in the terminal. The terrible Windows redesigns are usually justified as being more intuitive to users who aren't "powerusers," but when you can't even get something as trivial as opening notepad consistent and logical, whose fault is that? Not the users. The users are just using the abstractions Windows gives them and it's failing becaus Windows didn't implement it correctly.
- xmprt 7y agoAt what point do you stop blaming the user and start blaming the designer? Who's fault is it if a user doesn't know how to use a mouse and keyboard? Should we expect all apps to be built with text to speech and touch input as the primary interface? That just seems like a UX nightmare to me. To apply that extreme to this case, I think it's not too much to ask that users know what the start menu is and how to use it to find and start apps.
- c3534l 7y ago> I think it's not too much to ask that users know what the start menu is and how to use it to find and start apps. It is when you provide icons for most applications, but only provide text search for others (which has a confusing interface that sometimes displays webpages and local documents). There are limits to blaming the designer, but inconsistent, half implemented, with few affordances, that uses mixed metaphores is neither good programming or good design. It's not always the fault of the design, but this design is the fault in this case.
- porknubbins 7y agoI agree, don’t look down on these people at all. I’ve been using computers my whole life but UI intuitive usability peaked at Windows XP or OSX. I often require multiple attempts to do simple tasks in Windows 10 because its so goddamn inconsistent. There are like 4 different types of search bars and who can remember which one is searching the internet, just your files (depending on if they’re indexed yet), the internet AND your local files, installed programs etc.
- zw123456 7y agoThere were a number of things that go missing when going from win7 to 10, like the games, Chess Titans (and others) disappear and replaced by ad driven crap. Also, DVD player, in Windows 7 it was included in Win10 you have to buy one or get a "free" one that is ad driven. Hard to blame Microsoft when it seems like everything has ads stuffed into it now days.
- sorenjan 7y agoThe DVD player might be because you need to pay a license to play MPEG-2 video. You still need to buy a license key to use the MPEG-2 hardware decoder on a Raspberry Pi.
- BLKNSLVR 7y agoDon't forget the calculator, which used to start within milliseconds of clicking the icon, but now takes a, sometimes not even countable on your fingers alone, number of seconds to load.
- stan_rogers 7y agoThe Win10 calculator is also missing a lot of functionality. Luckily, there's an easy way to put back the old calculator... but it's only really launchable if you pin it. https://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from-windows-8-and-windows-7-in-windows-10/ https://winaero.com/blog/get-calculator-from-windows-8-and-w...
- Causality1 7y agoLosing the ability to type a program name into the start menu and drag it onto the desktop to create a shortcut is one of the more baffling and infuriating feature regressions in Windows 10.
- benmorris 7y agoWindows has become a complete UI disaster. I feel like Windows 7 was the last cohesive UI. The control panel is a great example. I'm not sure how it could possibly be more of a train wreck. Settings are in seemingly random locations split between the new and old style control panels. The deeper you get into dialogs it is like stepping back in time. Printers or network adapters you end up jumping back and forth to find the correct setting.
- Nition 7y agoIf anyone hasn't really noticed this, a good example is try changing the mouse pointer speed (which is surely a pretty common thing to want to do!).
- markmark 7y agoI'm on mac, but opened up my windows laptop to check this. I clicked the start menu, typed "mouse speed" and the first option was "Change the mouse pointer display or speed", I picked that and there I was.
- Nition 7y agoThe main issue is that a search for "mouse" or the like takes you to the new Settings panel for mouse instead, which has some options but not all. A small "Additional mouse options" link under a "Related settings" heading then takes you back to the old Control Panel mouse settings, where you can actually change the speed. Your search was good, and got you straight to the old Control Panel version. But the fact that the settings are split over two not-fully-overlapping systems is a bit ridiculous, and confusing.
- aliswe 7y agoWell if it isn't Ben Morris ..... Thanks for your valuable blog posts on microservices etc. No way to contact you privately? I'm making a stateless .net core cms ... To the topic, I agree fully. In swedish, it's even worse. Wanted to change some environment variables yesterday (golang path) and tried to find the "system" dialog that is opened through windows + break key that is found on non-laptop keyboards Search for system? You get system information, system configuration, etc, but not the classic control-panel "app" called system. Also, remote desktop (the tsclient) isn't anywhere to be found except by typing the improbable and kinda arcane translation "fjärrskrivbord"
- jonnycomputer 7y agowhere is notepad++ you mean. because its just absurd that Windows doesn't ship with a premium text editor. its not like Microsoft doesn't make one or anything... /s
- DKEYBOY 7y agoThat's cool