It should a case study how every tech company eventually ruin the experience of their platforms, and how Apple never does. You can fault Apple for not innovating enough, but what they never do is 'shoving in the face', which is endemic to companies like Microsoft. I had to use Windows to test my app's Windows build [1], it's crazy how many random things are there, with no obvious way to remove them.
There's donkey right in the corner of the bottom search bar reminding me that today is "World Donkey Day". On the other corner is some random info clicking, which I get breaking news, weather, and stock-related info. I just begin using the system, when there's popup about co-pilot chat or something. Search is almost useless as it seems more interested in returning bing-related results vs what's actually on my computer.
Everything seems to be designed to maximize 'user engagement' of products that are hot right now, and what upper management seems to be interested in. The news is no surprise as it seems everyone in the company is rallying behind AI efforts without paying heed to user experience.
I worry that this change increases the attack surface of what was a very safe application for viewing untrusted files. Of course, I worried about that at the release of 'new' notepad too...
Wow it defaulted to "enabled" for me but wasn't working because I'm not signed in with a Microsoft account. I didn't even notice it was on.
I use notepad as a copy/paste tool to strip formatting and make minor edits. I paste a lot of sensitive information there; I already had to turn off the "restore content on reopen" feature, this is disturbing that I am not sure whether having Copilot enabled could possibly send content to an LLM unprompted (maybe it's just menu-driven but I don't know...)
I would like to recommend notepad++. It does the job and I especially like it for multi-document and the other feautures like regex replace and plugins, etc...
I don't get the point of things like changing the tone of something with AI in Notepad. If I'm going to write something formal, I'm probably not writing it in Notepad.
What I'd kind of like with something like Copilot in a text editor, assuming it's going to be included in the first place, would be recommendations to fix formatting or a source to help find issues in config files.
It harkens back to the days of Clippy...
"It looks like you're trying to write a suicide note. Would you like help with that?"
But now it's going to be AI transforming "remove all files from the storeroom" into "rm -r *"...
in a standard windows installation, notepad and wordpad were the only tools for writing. Wordpad was the one, where formatting could be set. But it reached its EoL and is removed from new versions of windows. Notepad was upgraded with tabs for multifile edit. So, it makes sense, as a lot of people do not buy ms office or know about the other software like open office. ... May be its to complicated for them. So, having copilot in notepad solves two pains:
- giving the ones, who do not care for formatting, copilot in the only writing programm in windows/standard.
- allowing MSFT to push their copilot to users in an effort to establish it and to force users into an MSFT-Account
I don't like it either..
I had to hack my windows with some shady regex i found in order to stop constant and forced updates because of things like this (although this is not a big deal but they add up and it's only a matter of time until they release an update with ads everywhere).
I just completely disagree with the philosophy of software being something that is constantly updated and changed (of course it needs updates but less is more here, instead of the usual CI/CD with daily production updates every day). We could have solid and reliable software that optimizes for stability, but that would cost companies more money so instead they allow themselves all the runway they need to fix and update as much as needed and they can cut costs around testing and engineering while using end users as their testers.
I'm definitely looking into Linux but unfortunately I do like Nvidia GPUs and I have concerns around that. Regardless, it's not tha I don't want to pay for an OS. MacOS is basically the best of both worlds, but I wish there was something like MacOS for PCs. I heard Valve is making a SteamOS, and I think that looks promising.
> mania takes hold
Sure, unlike the rest of the industry, which has taken a noticeably restrained approach to AI... But, oh, wait, this is El Reg, so it's all to be taken with a whole shaker full of salt.
Anyway, PSA time: if you're on Windows, and you dislike anything about the "New Notepad" experience (for me, the inexplicable approach to tab handling was the dealbreaker), here are the arduous steps required to get rid of it:
1. Find Notepad in your Start menu, right-click its icon, select Uninstall.
Yeah, I know... (FAQ: "Will this restore my precious notepad.exe to its previous functionality, which is wrapping the Win32 text edit control without any frills? Yes!")
Use Sublime Text. It's much better and while there are AI plugins (because of course there fucking are) it isn't directly integrated into the core application.
I am going to stick with Notepad++
I got out of Microsoft a very long time ago. Whatever nice things they had they are now activity. They seem to be following the current US Admin, except in tech.
Crazy times.
Is it dumb? Yes. Can you still use Notepad as Notepad? Also yes.
We'll all survive.
It is interesting that a giant like Microsoft got hoodwinked into paying billions for this technology and now has nothing better to do with it than jam it into notepad at the request of absolutely no one.
It's like writing on a wall that most of Hacker News just does not want to observe.
> has nothing better to do with it
This is pretty untrue, considering how much other stuff they're putting Copilot into.
Chances are a few people working on all the rest of the new stuff with Notepad thought it would be fun to add it, and managed to get it in. It probably didn't take much to add.
I find it pretty funny that despite Copilot being a chatbot through and through, the only way you cannot talk with "it" is through Teams.
Yes, I know you can set up your own Bot Framework identity that then brokers everything to a model. But one would think that they'd want people to be able to just chat with Copilot where folks chat with everyone else.
They're going to jam it into everything, Notepad is just low hanging fruit. Wait until AI is the universal interface for Windows and all Windows applications.
It should a case study how every tech company eventually ruin the experience of their platforms, and how Apple never does. You can fault Apple for not innovating enough, but what they never do is 'shoving in the face', which is endemic to companies like Microsoft. I had to use Windows to test my app's Windows build [1], it's crazy how many random things are there, with no obvious way to remove them.
There's donkey right in the corner of the bottom search bar reminding me that today is "World Donkey Day". On the other corner is some random info clicking, which I get breaking news, weather, and stock-related info. I just begin using the system, when there's popup about co-pilot chat or something. Search is almost useless as it seems more interested in returning bing-related results vs what's actually on my computer.
Everything seems to be designed to maximize 'user engagement' of products that are hot right now, and what upper management seems to be interested in. The news is no surprise as it seems everyone in the company is rallying behind AI efforts without paying heed to user experience.
[1]: https://textquery.app/
I worry that this change increases the attack surface of what was a very safe application for viewing untrusted files. Of course, I worried about that at the release of 'new' notepad too...
Wow it defaulted to "enabled" for me but wasn't working because I'm not signed in with a Microsoft account. I didn't even notice it was on.
I use notepad as a copy/paste tool to strip formatting and make minor edits. I paste a lot of sensitive information there; I already had to turn off the "restore content on reopen" feature, this is disturbing that I am not sure whether having Copilot enabled could possibly send content to an LLM unprompted (maybe it's just menu-driven but I don't know...)
I would like to recommend notepad++. It does the job and I especially like it for multi-document and the other feautures like regex replace and plugins, etc...
https://notepad-plus-plus.org
I don't get the point of things like changing the tone of something with AI in Notepad. If I'm going to write something formal, I'm probably not writing it in Notepad.
What I'd kind of like with something like Copilot in a text editor, assuming it's going to be included in the first place, would be recommendations to fix formatting or a source to help find issues in config files.
It harkens back to the days of Clippy...
"It looks like you're trying to write a suicide note. Would you like help with that?"
But now it's going to be AI transforming "remove all files from the storeroom" into "rm -r *"...
in a standard windows installation, notepad and wordpad were the only tools for writing. Wordpad was the one, where formatting could be set. But it reached its EoL and is removed from new versions of windows. Notepad was upgraded with tabs for multifile edit. So, it makes sense, as a lot of people do not buy ms office or know about the other software like open office. ... May be its to complicated for them. So, having copilot in notepad solves two pains:
- giving the ones, who do not care for formatting, copilot in the only writing programm in windows/standard.
- allowing MSFT to push their copilot to users in an effort to establish it and to force users into an MSFT-Account
I don't like it either..
I had to hack my windows with some shady regex i found in order to stop constant and forced updates because of things like this (although this is not a big deal but they add up and it's only a matter of time until they release an update with ads everywhere).
I just completely disagree with the philosophy of software being something that is constantly updated and changed (of course it needs updates but less is more here, instead of the usual CI/CD with daily production updates every day). We could have solid and reliable software that optimizes for stability, but that would cost companies more money so instead they allow themselves all the runway they need to fix and update as much as needed and they can cut costs around testing and engineering while using end users as their testers.
I'm definitely looking into Linux but unfortunately I do like Nvidia GPUs and I have concerns around that. Regardless, it's not tha I don't want to pay for an OS. MacOS is basically the best of both worlds, but I wish there was something like MacOS for PCs. I heard Valve is making a SteamOS, and I think that looks promising.
> mania takes hold
Sure, unlike the rest of the industry, which has taken a noticeably restrained approach to AI... But, oh, wait, this is El Reg, so it's all to be taken with a whole shaker full of salt.
Anyway, PSA time: if you're on Windows, and you dislike anything about the "New Notepad" experience (for me, the inexplicable approach to tab handling was the dealbreaker), here are the arduous steps required to get rid of it:
1. Find Notepad in your Start menu, right-click its icon, select Uninstall.
Yeah, I know... (FAQ: "Will this restore my precious notepad.exe to its previous functionality, which is wrapping the Win32 text edit control without any frills? Yes!")
Use Sublime Text. It's much better and while there are AI plugins (because of course there fucking are) it isn't directly integrated into the core application.
I am going to stick with Notepad++
I got out of Microsoft a very long time ago. Whatever nice things they had they are now activity. They seem to be following the current US Admin, except in tech.
Crazy times.
Is it dumb? Yes. Can you still use Notepad as Notepad? Also yes.
We'll all survive.
It is interesting that a giant like Microsoft got hoodwinked into paying billions for this technology and now has nothing better to do with it than jam it into notepad at the request of absolutely no one.
It's like writing on a wall that most of Hacker News just does not want to observe.
> has nothing better to do with it
This is pretty untrue, considering how much other stuff they're putting Copilot into.
Chances are a few people working on all the rest of the new stuff with Notepad thought it would be fun to add it, and managed to get it in. It probably didn't take much to add.
I find it pretty funny that despite Copilot being a chatbot through and through, the only way you cannot talk with "it" is through Teams.
Yes, I know you can set up your own Bot Framework identity that then brokers everything to a model. But one would think that they'd want people to be able to just chat with Copilot where folks chat with everyone else.
They're going to jam it into everything, Notepad is just low hanging fruit. Wait until AI is the universal interface for Windows and all Windows applications.