Microsoft veteran rolls back years for bloated but still beloved Notepad

When Microsoft pushed AI into Notepad, thousands of users begged the tech giant to leave the minimalist feature alone – to no avail. Thankfully, an engineer has now built a back-to-basics version of the feature.

In the olden days, when you needed to make a note on your Windows laptop, you went to Notepad. It was simple, tiny, and just lean: nothing fancy, only the text you typed in.

Fast forward to 2026, and Notepad is unrecognizable. Since Microsoft introduced Windows 11, Copilot-powered features have been bloating the once minimalist text editor – no one’s really happy, but the tech giant, riding the AI wave, probably doesn’t care.

Already last year, frustrated netizens were saying that Notepad should now “rest in peace” and asking Microsoft to “leave Notepad alone and f**k with Wordpad instead.”

Now, one former Microsoft engineer, Dave Plummer, has heard them. On his YouTube channel “Dave’s Garage,” he said he’s created a version of Notepad that fits in less than 3 kilobytes.

“I rebuilt it from scratch. 2.5 kilobytes. No bloat. No telemetry. No nonsense. Just pure old school Windows done right,” said Plummer.

Needless to say, with RAM, storage, and gadget prices hitting the roof, the fact that a tool can be this compact might become rather important. No wonder YouTubers are collectively thanking Plummer, one saying: “You’re speaking my language, sir.”

The application, available for use, is written in assembly and uses the RICHEDIT50W from the WinAPI. There are Open and Save As dialogs, as well as font selection.

In other words, as Plummer says, TinyRetroPad looks “exactly like you might remember Notepad Circa Windows XP.” It’s almost as if someone has deinvented the wheel in this particular case.

In February, a newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Notepad's offering of AI-powered features.

Of course, other Notepad alternatives are available, and there’s also a solution if you’re using Microsoft’s Notepad. You can disable the AI tools on the application by going to the Settings tab and unselecting Copilot.

Still, you have to be careful. In February, a newly disclosed vulnerability reignited criticism of Notepad's offering of AI-powered features.

Microsoft itself said in a security advisory that hackers can trick Windows users into clicking a malicious link in a Markdown file, a text-based document opened by default in the Notepad app on most Windows systems.

“The new AI-powered Notepad on Windows 11 was found to have a Remote Code Execution zero-day. Hot take: text editors don’t need network functionality,” malware researchers vx-underground posted on X.