The Default View Source Editor Has Changed in Internet Explorer 8

When you click the View Source command in Internet Explorer 8, it uses the built-in viewer, which is part of the Developer Tools in Internet Explorer 8. The built-in viewer lets you dynamically refresh the view source window, increase or decrease the text size and lists other standard options.

The new Viewer does not allow editing the source though. Previous versions of Internet Explorer use Notepad as the default source editor, which lets you modify the source before saving. To set Notepad as the default view source editor in Internet Explorer 8 (and previous versions), use the instructions below.

Changing the View Source Editor in Internet Explorer

Registry Fix

Download viewsrc_ie8.zip, unzip the file and extract the contents to a folder. Double-click the file viewsrc-notepad.reg to set Notepad as the default View Source editor. To restore the original setting (built-in viewer as the default), run the file viewsrc-default.reg.

Note: The above REG files can be used with previous versions of Internet Explorer as well.

Manual Registry Edit

1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to:

2. Create a subkey named View Source Editor

3. Under View Source Editor, create another key named Editor Name

4. Select the following key:

5. Double-click (default) and set Notepad.exe as its data

Note: If you prefer a third-party text editor (such as Notepad+, Notepad Lite etc), type the full path to the executable.

6. Exit the Registry Editor.

Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.