There are situations where you need to open plain-text files (where the file type is not registered in your system, or the file has NO extension at all) using Notepad or any other text editor. Usually, you use the Open With dialog and select Notepad from the list. If Notepad is not available in the list, you browse to Notepad.exe in the Windows folder and add it to the dialog.
Adding the Open with Notepad option in the context menu will save you a couple of mouse clicks.
Note: After implementing the changes mentioned in this article, the Open with Notepad option will appear when you right-click on any file type in Explorer. Be aware that opening binary files (For example: .exe, .dll, .com and so forth..) using Notepad and saving them would corrupt the file and may no longer run. Use this Open with Notepad only for files containing text content.
To add the Open with Notepad command in the context menu for all file types, we need to create new registry keys/values under this branch:
Note that the * above is not a Wildcard, but an explicit asterisk. (*)
1. Download openwithnotepad.zip and save it to your Desktop
2. Unzip the contents (two .reg files) to a folder
3. Right-click the file openwithnotepad.reg and then choose Merge
UNDO INFORMATION
To remove the Open With Notepad option, right-click on the undo-openwithnotepad.reg file and choose Merge.
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