Hello,does anyone know if you can re-enable ANSI encoding by registry in the notepad, instead of the default UTF8 encoding, which is given since Windows 10 version 1903.

salclem2 It's not quite so easy!Many people use Notepad for a quick .cmd/.bat file. These will not run under the command interpreter if encoded as UTF-8. The command interpreter simply gives a non-printable character plus the first character of the .cmd/.bat file and "is not recognized as a command" error if run from command prompt. If run as standalone, the window simply blinks open and closes immediately and does not execute the desired commands. Anyone wanting to write a .cmd or .bat now needs to remember to save as ANSI - very inconvenient! It would be very nice to have access to a key (maybe under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Notepad) that respected the user's wishes for default coding. Or maybe Notepad could offer to set the coding as default?

MalTorte Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad] "iDefaultEncoding"=dword:00000001 ; 1 = ANSI ; 2 = UTF-16 LE ; 3 = UTF-16 BE ; 4 = UTF-8 BOM ; 5 = UTF-8

HotCakeXYour instructions are for creating a UTF-8 template document to make UTF-8 a sort of default, which is the opposite of what the OP asked for. UTF-8 is already the default. This technique will not work if the template file is empty or contains only ASCII text, as it would be byte-for-byte identical in ANSI and UTF-8. Notepad will just use its default encoding, either ANSI or UTF-8 depending on the version The template file will only be identified with the original encoding if it contains something that causes Notepad to recognize the encoding, such as a UTF-8 BOM (but the OP wants ANSI, not UTF-8), or an ANSI multi-byte sequence that cannot be reinterpreted as valid UTF-8. For example, a text file containing only "µ" encoded as ANSI (for code page 1252, anyway) will correctly be identified as ANSI. Of course, there's no need to worry about UTF-8 vs. ANSI in the first place if every file contains only ASCII text.

salclem2 Sorry, but lexikos is actually right. ASCII is a 7-bit character encoding, which means it has 2^7=128 possible values. What you mean is extended ASCII which is actually a 8-bit extension to original ASCII. This keeps the original 128 ASCII encoding and adds another 128 on top of it.So in decimal characters 0 - 127 are original ASCII and characters 128 - 255 are extended ASCII characters.

1234598765 Hello,after a big battle I realized that the solution was provided by abbodi1406 , so I did as follows and it works like a charm:- In Regedit go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad- in the menu select edit/new/DWORD- in the DWORD name enter iDefaultEncoding and enter value 1 as hexadecimal (it will automatically display as 0x0000001 (1) once you press OK) That's it 🙂

Notepad Default encoding UTF8 Windows 10 Version 1903

13 Replies

kindofguik
Copper Contributor
Apr 16, 2020
1234598765
Hello,
after a big battle I realized that the solution was provided by abbodi1406 , so I did as follows and it works like a charm:
- In Regedit go to Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Notepad
- in the menu select edit/new/DWORD
- in the DWORD name enter iDefaultEncoding and enter value 1 as hexadecimal (it will automatically display as 0x0000001 (1) once you press OK)

That's it 🙂
HotCakeX
MVP
Sep 03, 2019
1234598765

Hi,

- use Notepad++ which is free
- OR use registry hack:

Right click on Desktop, then choose New > Text Document
A text file New Text Document.txt is created. Don't type anything and open it.
Go to File > Save As... and choose UTF-8 under Encoding:, press Save and overwrite the existing file. Close the file.
Rename New Text Document.txt to TXTUTF-8.txt
Copy "TXTUTF-8.txt" to C:\WINDOWS\SHELLNEW
Go to Start > Run... and type regedit and press ok
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.txt\ShellNew
Right-click in the right window > New > String Value and rename it to FileName
Double click on FileName and put TXTUTF-8.txt into Value data: field and press ok
Remember, whenever you want to open a blank utf-8 txt document you will have to right click > New > Text Document and work from there.
Modifying the registry can cause serious damage pay attention, please.
- lexikos
  Copper Contributor
  Sep 27, 2019
  HotCakeXYour instructions are for creating a UTF-8 template document to make UTF-8 a sort of default, which is the opposite of what the OP asked for. UTF-8 is already the default.
  
  This technique will not work if the template file is empty or contains only ASCII text, as it would be byte-for-byte identical in ANSI and UTF-8. Notepad will just use its default encoding, either ANSI or UTF-8 depending on the version
  
  The template file will only be identified with the original encoding if it contains something that causes Notepad to recognize the encoding, such as a UTF-8 BOM (but the OP wants ANSI, not UTF-8), or an ANSI multi-byte sequence that cannot be reinterpreted as valid UTF-8. For example, a text file containing only "µ" encoded as ANSI (for code page 1252, anyway) will correctly be identified as ANSI.
  
  Of course, there's no need to worry about UTF-8 vs. ANSI in the first place if every file contains only ASCII text.
  - salclem2
    Copper Contributor
    Oct 28, 2019
    lexikos
    "Of course, there's no need to worry about UTF-8 vs. ANSI in the first place if every file contains only ASCII text."
    
    Wrong. If you write for example "è" in notepad, when you open the file with another text editor, you will see "Ã¨" and not "è". Then, there's need to worry about UTF-8 vs ANSI, because "è" has his ASCII code, i.e. 232

Forum Discussion

Notepad Default encoding UTF8 Windows 10 Version 1903

13 Replies

Resources