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Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#351

Post by stevefan1999 »

j2kun wrote: post #189
password4321 wrote: post #179

I believe Markdown support is what led to CVE-2026-20841 earlier this month. 20260211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46971516 Windows Notepad App Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (804 points, 516 comments) 20260210 https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20... > "An attacker could trick a user into clicking a malicious link inside a Markdown file opened in Notepad" Other recent Notepad issu…

This is my favorite part of this story. Do you want remote code execution? Because [fixing things that aren't broken] is how you get remote code execution.

Well this is what we call it opportunity cost

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#352

Post by TeMPOraL »

al_borland wrote: post #326
TeMPOraL wrote: post #57

Markdown support isn't a bad idea, actually, as long as they don't break the most important (IMO) property of Notepad: binary WYSIWYG . I.e. if I type in some plain text and then open the file with anything else (including after moving to another machine/platform, or even viewing raw data stream in transit or on drive), I can trust to see that text, as is, and nothing else . In particular, if I restrict myself to low…

Notepad being a plain text editor, it always supported markdown. Versions of notepad from the 80s would be able to open and edit markdown, as it’s just plain text. Apps like classic notepad are useful to have around, when apps that try to parse things like markdown get it wrong and the underlying file needs to be fixed.

Makes me wonder - with Notepad rapidly evolving into WordPad v2, and no default "just render bytes as text" solution in modern Windows to replace it, maybe there's still a way to hack one together on the go, just from pieces laying around in every default installation? I mean, rundll32.exe is a thing.

All I really need is a basic text box with a scroll bar, and a way to feed it with bytes from a file.

To make it a well-defined challenge: the task is to find a way to create a basic notepad - a multi-line textbox that supports scrolling, and can be fed bytes from a file to render as text directly. Additionally, this must be achievable through simple means - simple enough to memorize - and must work on standard Windows 11 installation, with no extra dependencies to procure. Solution can be e.g. something I can type from memory into "Run" (Win+R) box, but could also be a short list of GUI steps (e.g. open some program, click on "Help", drag file to help box).

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#353

Post by eurleif »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #352
al_borland wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notepad being a plain text editor, it always supported markdown. Versions of notepad from the 80s would be able to open and edit markdown, as it’s just plain text. Apps like classic notepad are useful to have around, when apps that try to parse things like markdown get it wrong and the underlying file needs to be fixed.

Makes me wonder - with Notepad rapidly evolving into WordPad v2, and no default "just render bytes as text" solution in modern Windows to replace it, maybe there's still a way to hack one together on the go, just from pieces laying around in every default installation? I mean, rundll32.exe is a thing. All I really need is a basic text box with a scroll bar, and a way to feed it with bytes from a file. To make it a we…

If you're ok with a TUI instead of a GUI, Microsoft's documentation says the `edit` command is still around in Windows 11 (I don't have a Windows 11 machine handy to verify this): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat...

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#354

Post by password4321 »

perching_aix wrote: post #273
j2kun wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favorite part of this story. Do you want remote code execution? Because [fixing things that aren't broken] is how you get remote code execution.

I thought it is by introducing an RCE vulnerability that you get an RCE vulnerability. I'm being facetious of course, but this recent rhetorical trend of people confidently vouching for "pet" in "pet vs. cattle" is not a sustainable decision, even if it's admittedly plain practical on the short to medium run, or in given contexts even longer. It's just a dangerous and irresponsible lesson to blindly repeat I think. C…

Good point re: "RCE" though the CVSS score is 7.8/high severity; some more flavor per the FAQ at https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

> According to the CVSS metric, the attack vector is local (AV:L). Why does the CVE title indicate that this is a remote code execution?

> The word Remote in the title refers to the location of the attacker. This type of exploit is sometimes referred to as Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE). The attack itself is carried out locally.

> For example, when the score indicates that the Attack Vector is Local and User Interaction is Required, this could describe an exploit in which an attacker, through social engineering, convinces a victim to download and open a specially crafted file from a website which leads to a local attack on their computer.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#355

Post by al_borland »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #352
al_borland wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notepad being a plain text editor, it always supported markdown. Versions of notepad from the 80s would be able to open and edit markdown, as it’s just plain text. Apps like classic notepad are useful to have around, when apps that try to parse things like markdown get it wrong and the underlying file needs to be fixed.

Makes me wonder - with Notepad rapidly evolving into WordPad v2, and no default "just render bytes as text" solution in modern Windows to replace it, maybe there's still a way to hack one together on the go, just from pieces laying around in every default installation? I mean, rundll32.exe is a thing. All I really need is a basic text box with a scroll bar, and a way to feed it with bytes from a file. To make it a we…

Dave Plummer vibe coded one on his YouTube channel a couple months ago. Normally I wouldn’t share someone vibe coding something, but since he wrote the Task Manager, Zip Folders, and other such core Windows features back in the day, it hits different.

https://youtu.be/bmBd39OwvWg

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#357

Post by cube00 »

psyklic wrote: post #344

A notepad "welcome experience"? How is notepad turning into bloatware?

On the face it's reasonable until you remember how frequently we get "welcomed" to Windows and then to Edge.

Before you know it every month this thing will appear over the top of what you actually want to do.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#359

Post by LevGoldstein »

lenkite wrote: post #309
dataflow wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows 10 explorer.exe is 100x faster than Windows 11 explorer, it's not even close. I have a hard time believing this. I'm pretty sensitive to performance losses and I haven't noticed any difference between those. It wouldn't make sense either, given they should both host the same shell icon views. Are you sure the difference you're seeing is in explorer.exe? As opposed to something else, like a new shell extensi…

It is certainly perceptibly slow. Carried out a test on my 12 year old PC running Win-10 vs a new HP Win11 laptop of my friend which he bought in a hurry before price increases. Opened a directory of several thousand files with nested folders - much slower at navigation. Much slower at opening right-click menus. Much slower at pretty much everything. M$ has now introduced web-latency into the desktop along with their…

> M$ has now introduced web-latency into the desktop along with their adoption of web-tech into the OS.

So we're back to the woes of Active Desktop on Windows 98. Everything old is new again.

Re: Windows 11 Notepad to support Markdown

#360

Post by TeMPOraL »

eurleif wrote: post #353
TeMPOraL wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes me wonder - with Notepad rapidly evolving into WordPad v2, and no default "just render bytes as text" solution in modern Windows to replace it, maybe there's still a way to hack one together on the go, just from pieces laying around in every default installation? I mean, rundll32.exe is a thing. All I really need is a basic text box with a scroll bar, and a way to feed it with bytes from a file. To make it a we…

If you're ok with a TUI instead of a GUI, Microsoft's documentation says the `edit` command is still around in Windows 11 (I don't have a Windows 11 machine handy to verify this): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administrat...

Huh. I was going to say, last time I saw this was 20+ years ago, and I forgot it exists - but I must be remembering something else. It seems `edit` is a new thing, if I'm to believe https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/edit/

I can confirm it exists on my Windows 11 machine, and I didn't install it specifically, though it's definitely not a base install (upgraded from Windows 10, and plenty of dev tooling installed over the years). Still, it fits the bill (+/- GUI, but I didn't consider TUI at all). Thanks!

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