Think Notepad is Bloatpad now? Microsoft's new lightweight text editor is coming to Windows 11

If you're one of those people who's lamenting the loss of a super-streamlined text editor in Windows 11 - now Microsoft has binned WordPad, and turned Notepad into more of an approximation of that dead and buried app - there's an official alternative on the radar.

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Microsoft has a new app in the pipeline simply called 'Edit' as Windows Latest highlighted, and we're told it will be inbound for Windows 11 soon enough.

This is a completely stripped-back text editor with only basic functionality that can be accessed via the command prompt (or PowerShell). Microsoft notes that the app "pays homage to the classic MS-DOS Editor, but with a modern interface and input controls similar to VS Code."

If you want to see what this is all about, you can actually grab the Edit app from GitHub and manually install it, then run it simply by firing up the command prompt and typing 'edit' then hitting enter.

The idea is a return to the highly performant and quickfire text editor of old, for those who are feeling that Notepad is getting too bloated with all the extra features Microsoft keeps adding in recent times (and that includes AI stuff).

Microsoft appears to be trying to compensate for scrapping WordPad by fleshing out Notepad a bit more, for those who don't want to pay for Word via a Microsoft 365 subscription.

Edit does pack some features, of course, such as find and replace functionality for example. And don't worry, it's not keyboard-only as you can still use your mouse, as Windows Latest, which took the app for a test drive, makes clear.

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