GitHub · Microsoft · Tom's Hardware
RetroPad is a ‘full-feature-parity version of Notepad from XP’ in just 2,749 bytes
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A “full-feature-parity version of Notepad” has been written in x86 assembly and it weighs in at 2,749 bytes.
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
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. That’s impressive enough in 2.7KB, rather than an app of about 65KB. 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.