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Change default View Source editor in IE

Want to change your default View Source editor from Notepad to say Notepad2?

Run REGEDIT, follow the following directions to the proper key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
|- Software
|-- Microsoft
|--- Internet Explorer
|---- View Source Editor
|----- Editor Name (Default) = C:\windows\notepad.exe

If this doesnt exist (but it should) then create the Key "View Source Editor".
Then create a Key within that named "Editor Name". Modify the "(Default)" value to make it point towards any program on your computer using "D:\Tools\Notepad2\Notepad2.exe" (without the brackets).
[Open Tech Support]

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Posted: Nov 25 2004, 08:06 AM by Thea Burger | with 43 comment(s)
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Comments

Pieter Jansen van Vuuren said:

Aaaah cool, I love NotePad2! Doing this right now
# November 25, 2004 8:36 AM

Andre Odendaal said:

Done!!! You are a star! Thank you so much!
# November 25, 2004 3:01 PM

Quaimatul Muktazee said:

You are not a star but a SUPER STAR....
Cheers
# December 15, 2004 3:55 AM

Some guy said:

Thanks for the tip - helped me out when IE lost my key. :)

A google search of "ie view source viewer" came up with your listing ranked 4th.
# December 16, 2004 9:25 PM

ALexanDeR said:

my google search of "default IE editor" came up with your listing ranked 1st

cya
# December 29, 2004 4:08 PM

Al said:

was struggling to find a way to change default editor to editplus (highly recommended!). searched google for ("view source" editor) and this came tops. excellent.
# January 5, 2005 7:43 PM

Chris Maguire said:

Found you on google, ranked 3rd with "ie view source."

Thanks for the tip!
# January 7, 2005 12:02 AM

Anoop Sankar said:

hmm.. unlike the other users I wanted to revert back to notepad, since ultraedit32 had taken over it, without my consent.. :)

anyway "view source ie change" gave yours as first.

thanks
# January 24, 2005 2:49 PM

Arctic Fox said:

Awesome!

Bye-bye scrappy Notepad... hello UltraEdit32! ;)

# March 27, 2005 12:03 AM

Pran said:

Thanks,
Wonderful tip indeed., and in my case., hello TextPad.
# May 18, 2005 2:32 AM

someguy said:

Thanks VERY much!

It was driving me mad.
# June 21, 2005 11:28 PM

ME said:

You are De man!!!
# June 29, 2005 9:48 PM

TrackBack said:

# August 23, 2005 11:26 AM

Paul Duggan said:

Nice one. Notepad++ is the kiddy.
# August 24, 2005 3:27 PM

WebMonky said:

Created the key View Source Editor and Editor Name etc to use my Edit+ 2 as default IE source ditor...

works flawless!!

Thanks a lot!
# October 12, 2005 10:15 AM

Sandeep said:

I would like to share a tricky method that I found for this problem.
Suppose Notepad2.exe is the new editor.
Create a short cut on your desktop. Rename it to Notepad.exe.
Now open the view source.
It worked for me on Win2k.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
# November 25, 2005 12:50 PM

Tony Chor said:

Thanks for posting this. It was super useful. I'm the Group Program Manager of the Internet Explorer team at Microsoft in Redmond, but I found your article faster and more easily than I could ask my devs! :)

Thanks.

# December 6, 2005 9:43 AM

Damodhar said:

Works like a charm. The Live Help team is filled with bums. Thanks Thea!
# December 20, 2005 12:31 PM

Gershon said:

I have been looking for this forever, great tip thanks!!
# January 20, 2006 6:43 PM

Robert said:

Cool mini-tutorial. I had used ViewSourceEditor by Iconico once, but had lost the program (since found it - after following your instructions). Great explanation.

I used Change "View Source" editor on Google and you came in #1.
# January 24, 2006 12:28 AM

Robert said:

Thanks. I am using Editplus as the default editor now. But I don't see any formatting in the Editplus - I see plain text. Any reasons.. why???
# March 3, 2006 1:53 AM

Wessam Zeidan said:

I've been using NotePad2 for a while now. It's a great replacement for NotePad, the best feature being...
# March 4, 2006 9:41 PM

Thomas said:

THX :D U Saved my day
# March 16, 2006 4:51 PM

whomesoever said:

Its really cool and straight forward...
"how to change VIEW SOURCE of IE" in google brought me to this page.
u were ranked #1
evn the "I'm Feeling Lucky " got me redirected to your page...
# March 17, 2006 7:23 AM

Akeppc said:

Thanks so much for the info.  It's really really userful coz I'd been hoping for a long time to change NotePad to EditPlus.  But like Robert said, would it possible to see formatted text in EditPlus like opening it out of IE?
# March 31, 2006 10:13 AM

TLI said:

ROCKSTAR!!!  I've never used Notepad2 but I do really like Programmer's Notepad.  I switched to this and am one damn happy guy.  

Thanks!
# April 6, 2006 6:56 PM

tom said:

Very nice, thanks. I just switched to the incredible free SciTE editor from UltraEdit.
# April 6, 2006 9:53 PM

sanjay said:

very great tip :D But the thing Sandeep told is truly tricky ;) anyways thanx to both best of luck for new tip
# July 31, 2006 11:29 AM

bart said:

Since everybody is plugging his own favorite editor: check out http://www.xmlblueprint.com. My favorite
# August 5, 2006 5:03 PM

Terry said:

Thanx,that's really a trouble bother me a long time.You are very helpfull
# August 8, 2006 7:18 AM

Tom said:

anyone have a problem with this now creating multiple instances of your editor instead of just creating a new tab (assuming your editor has tabs). i tried with both TextPad and MSVS but i get a new instance for every View Source execution.
# August 10, 2006 12:00 AM

Tom said:

thank you, this will improve my testing abilities. i've tried using TextPad and MSVS as editors but if i perform View Source more than once it opens a new instance instead of a new tab. has anyone else experienced this? is there a way to force either of these to open a new tab instead of a new program instance?
# August 10, 2006 5:26 PM

Andy said:

Thanks, I had to create the key, but it worked like a charm. I'm using Windows XP.
# August 14, 2006 4:26 PM

Justin said:

Notepad++ includes an exe called nppIExplorerShell.exe that does this for you ;)
# August 27, 2006 11:56 PM

madhu said:

thats cool man!! thanks.
# August 30, 2006 12:40 AM

Charak said:

Fantastic tip! Thanks very much.
# September 20, 2006 12:55 PM

Ashish Joy said:

Thanks .. it worked
# September 27, 2006 1:16 AM

EdSG said:

Great! Got here via Google, easiest found tip ever. After applying I searched on Microsoft's MSDN, here the Link to the original page :http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/browser/configuration/clientreg/clientregistrylayout.asp
# October 14, 2006 4:07 PM

Picayune » Blog Archive » Changing the default source editor in IE said:

Pingback from  Picayune  » Blog Archive   » Changing the default source editor in IE

# February 19, 2008 11:03 AM

Internet Explorer View Source Editor said:

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# July 22, 2008 4:47 AM

Rexiology@MSDN said:

started playing around CRM 4.0 customization. need to view the page html source often and need a good

# August 27, 2008 2:37 PM

Rexiology::Work said:

crosspost from http://blogs.msdn.com/rextang started playing around CRM 4.0 customization. need to view

# August 27, 2008 2:38 PM