What I’ve always found useful since I started using Windows is to add notepad to the “Send To” menu, which is available when you right click on any file in Windows. This means that if you come across a text file with an extension which is not associated with Notepad then you can open it in Notepad quickly and easily.

To do this on your computer:

Browse to your “SendTo” folder - this is a folder which contains shortcuts which appear in the Send To Menu. If you’re using Windows Vista or Windows 7, this folder will be in the following location:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

If you use Windows XP, this folder is located at:

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\SendTo

For example, mine is:

C:\Documents and Settings\Tiposaurus\SendTo

Right click somewhere in this folder, then from the right click menu, select New -> Shortcut.

As the location of the item, enter Notepad then Windows will figure out the correct path to it. Alternatively you can enter the full path to it; if your Windows directory is C:\Windows then the full path to notepad will be C:\windows\system32\notepad.exe

As the name of the shortcut type whatever you want to see appearing in the “Send To” menu - I chose Notepad above.

When you click ‘Finish’ then you should see the shortcut you’ve just created appearing in the “Send To” menu, like in the picture above.