Hardly a day goes by when I don’t use Notepad, or one of the multitudes of replacements it’s spawned since it debuted in Windows 1.0 back in the early 1980′s. I hear much the same from other people as well. Despite how simple and “underpowered” this little app is, it is arguably one of the most oft-used default programs in the Windows family.

While one cannot deny how well designed this little app is for basic flat text editing, (some use it for HTML) it’s obviously short on bells and whistles. It has remained largely unchanged, with the notable exception the extension of it’s internal buffer, previous versions could not handle any file over 64K. Let’s take a look at a few of the ‘Notepad Replacements” that have attempted to take a great idea and run with it. Let’s start with WinPad, from Shri GauriShankar Software and see if it reaches the end zone or gets tackled for a loss.

Acquisition and Installation

WinPad can be downloaded from any number of places, I grabbed it from the program’s home page. WinPad is freeware, with a tiny package of 335KB and requires less than one meg of hard disk space. Install was quick and painless.

Features and Use

First thing off, I was perplexed. I could have sworn that I’d clicked the icon in the start menu for WinPad. Only, I saw MS WordPad. Or did I? <menacing music> Houston, we have a problem, as the saying goes. I opened WordPad and placed it right next to WinPad. The UI for WinPad is significantly better-looking, but to be honest, I think GauriShankar might want to keep his head down for a lawsuit from Redmond. They’re almost identical, right down to available features, where the buttons are located, you name it. About the only thing missing from WinPad that WordPad contains is the ruler and the Print Preview toolbar button, though it does have the preview feature as a menu item.

WinPad did deliver mostly as advertised. It’s definitely a decent word processor for basic tasks, opening files as quickly as Notepad, with the added ability to insert images, change fonts and colors, and align blocks of text.

On WinPad’s home page, one of the blurbs touted the program’s ability to ‘email files’. Sounds great. Save a few clicks, right? I was unable to locate this feature at all, nor any sign of it.

I replaced the file association for txt’s to point to WinPad, and left it so for a couple days. It worked just fine, but I just couldn’t get over the feeling like I’d just traded it for MS WordPad. I mean, I know the whole point was to make something better than Notepad, (which it is, by far) but when I think “Notepad” replacement” I think about things I haven’t seen before…good stuff…amazing stuff…not stuff I can get by default 8 items down from Notepad on a fresh install.

First, I don’t see how they can tout it as a ‘replacement’ when it’s basically a dead-ringer for another app by the same company. Second, I don’t see why any software creator would take up his time duplicating the work of MS then giving it away for free. Huh. Maybe this review should go over at Braincellsoup in the “WTF?” section.

System Friendliness

It did foul up my file associations a bit. After installing, there was no program associated with .txt files. I had to fix it manually. After uninstalling, I had to fix it again. It uninstalled quickly and cleanly, leaving only a couple wayward registry entries, which is quite normal, in my experience.

Pros: Free, small, works mostly as advertised

Cons: More a Doppelganger for WordPad than a replacement for Notepad.

Stay tuned for more Notepad replacement reviews!!!