GitHub · Microsoft · Tom's Hardware
Plummer unveiled this latest release of RetroPad on Thursday, describing it as a capability-for-capability match of the version
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That’s impressive enough in 2.7KB, rather than an app of about 65KB.
Key facts
- According to a web search notepad.exe would grow to around 190KB to 200KB for the Windows 7 to 10 eras
- A “full-feature-parity version of Notepad” has been written in x86 assembly and it weighs in at 2,749 bytes
- That’s impressive enough in 2.7KB, rather than an app of about 65KB
- The notepad.exe in their current Windows 11 install appears to weigh in at 352KB but according to the Windows Control Panel, the install size is 808KB
Summary
A “full-feature-parity version of Notepad” has been written in x86 assembly and it weighs in at 2,749 bytes. Plummer announced this latest release of RetroPad on Thursday, describing it as a feature-for-feature match of the version of Notepad that shipped with Windows XP. A few hours ago Plummer also added the trpad.exe to GitHub, so folks who don’t want to run the code through MASM/Crinkler can download and run this little utility. Windows bloat has become so bad that even Microsoft noticed. The puffing up of Notepad is a fascinating case study in Windows bloat.