How to make Notepad++ take over from the standard notepad.exe

Question

I could do this easily with TextPad, then I got irritated with Textpad once I'd played with Notepad++.

Now that I've removed Textpad:

• I want Notepad++ to take over the right-click > Edit option in Explorer, and
• I want Notepad++ to come up when I type notepad in the command prompt.

I know that Notepad++ has a shell extension that allows one to do right-click > Edit in Notepad++. But my old right-click > Edit link remains, and I keep finding myself clicking on it, only to be rewarded with an error.

Answer 1

Notepad++ has an interface exactly for this. Go to

Settings > Preferences > File > Association

From there you can choose what extensions you would like to associate with Notepad++, sorted into categories (with the option of adding custom ones)

Answer 2

If you don't want to change the system files simply right click on a file and select "Open With > Choose Default Program".

Now just select Notepad++ and you're good to go.

The only drawback with this approach is that you need to do it for all file types you want to open with the new program (*.txt, *.log, *.xml or whatever), so if you have a lot of different text based files it's not the option for you.

Answer 3

Replace Windows Notepad with more advanced editors

Answer 4

Notepad++ has a shell extension that allows you to do Right Click > Edit in Notepad++