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I was running NotePad and Chrome when my computer suddenly shuts down.

After reboot, chrome was able to "restore" itself such that I didn't lose any data.

However, how do we "restore" notepad.exe?

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    as an interesting note, I once was typing into untitled notepads, had a bunch open, and my laptop shut down, but nothing was lost.. 'cos I was using VNC and typing into notepad windows on another computer! a very stable one.. but if that one had shut down i'd have been in trouble. one advantage of notepad over ms word is if working on a file over a network, if the network goes down, ms word can lose a lot(or word 2k3 at least which i've tried).. notepad doesn't. But in a case of a shutdown, notepad is a loser.. i'd be interested in a solution too.
    – barlop
    Sep 14, 2011 at 4:50
  • A key is to get into a habit, and it's easy to lose the habit, but to try to get into a habit of starting txt files by going to the directory first start..run and with the help of autocomplete, and create the file so it has a name.. then double click it and start it. Or use a program like typeitin to automatically get to a directory from the file..open dialoge box, by entering a path for you so you just click the button it enters the path you hit enter. So you don't find yourself typing into untitled notepads. Or have a button that opens notepad already in a certain directory.
    – barlop
    Sep 15, 2011 at 18:31
  • @barlop you've noticed I was talking about unsaved running notepad.exes. An unsaved file can mean a file that has never been saved before or a modified file that is not yet saved. This solution requires me to hit Ctrl-S everytime i add some data in.
    – Pacerier
    Sep 15, 2011 at 20:37
  • well obviously notepad doesn't have an autosave feature, so i'm suggesting alternatives.. I think it's with typeitin you can click a button which will open notepad and the file-open dialog. It looks like textpad and notepad++ have an autosave option.
    – barlop
    Sep 15, 2011 at 22:16

5 Answers 5

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No. Notepad is designed to be lightweight and minimalist.

There may be other notepad programs out there that may do what you want.

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  • @Pacerier yeah try finding out what type of program notepad is, it's called a text editor(in case you didn't know), then it's a no brainer looking up what ones have an autosave feature for untitleds.
    – barlop
    Jul 24, 2014 at 9:39
  • word pad may do it. not sure though
    – Blaine
    Dec 31, 2015 at 10:42
  • So, microsoft's notepad doesn't create any temporary file, right?
    – Qwerty
    Jan 29, 2016 at 8:46
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    @Qwerty, correct. It works entirely in memory.
    – Hand-E-Food
    Jan 30, 2016 at 23:22
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NotePad++ creates a backup file you might find at:

%AppData%/Notepad++/backup

This trick saved me so much time and work! I hope this works for you too!

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There are lots of text editors that have auto-save save functionality, two of note:

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It is not 100% true that notpad data can not be recovered in any case. It depends on the type "shut down" itself. It is possible to create a full memory dump when windows crashes and a restart is forced (e.g. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/254649/overview-of-memory-dump-file-options-for-windows). If the dump is created, the content of the notepad instance will be saved in the memory dump file and can be recovered.

But in most cases the default settings are still active so no complete memory dump will been created and the data unfortunately will lost after the restart. So if you can not use notepad++ (which is the better option in terms of prevention of data loss and data recovery, as most people pointed out correctly) make sure to set windows to create the memory dump in the event of a crash.

In one of my answer (for my own question): How do I recover the content from Notepad when the task froze? I describe how to recover notepad data from a memory dump. Please note that this is not a complete memory dump but just a dump for the notepad instance/process/task (eg when notepad freezes). The complete memory dump will be much larger because it has the data of all processes. But in essence it can be done in the same fashion.

I know this is an old questions but since so many people still use notepad I thought it is worth to add another answer. Feel free to modify it to give more detailed instructions for users that need a step-by-step guide. Or add a comment with a specific question and I will try to give out more informations.

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I have found the best solution to this, if you install notepad++ and use 'Resource Hacker' (google it) to change the menu (cut it down) and the icon (change to notepad), and install the autosave plugin in notepad++, then you have something that looks almost entirely indistinguishable to classic notepad! And txt files have the notepad logo.

Also you need to go into settings and turn off a bunch of settings, including under editing tab, turn off line numbering, and change colours in 'style configurator'. The only notable difference is that highlighted text remains black.

Check out this image to see how close it is, you could even cut and rename menu items to look identical but there is no need to be that pedantic.

http://s24.postimg.org/6h15oprdh/notepad_clone.png

I just made a zip of notepad++ with the changes I made to the exe. https://mega.nz/#!i1lWyRCI!nwkgu1zxE6Z1XrBTDOZMFKSWvqdqCPgOjH-LDdRpATM

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