Haha, yeah.. Im using Notepad2 actually, because for LOOONG time, notepad.exe could not display LF files correctly... and Notepad2 has a bit more features, but still.. clean and lean.

This was already better when the latest from MS was still called "* XP":

https://liquidninja.com/metapad/

Wow that's a hit of nostalgia, I'd completely forgotten about metapad, but I loved it back in the day.

And it's hard to believe now, but yes, support for Ctrl+S to save file was a notable feature because notepad itself didn't support that back then.

Oh wow, yes I remember now, I used to type `Alt+F` and then `S` immediately because Notepad didn't support `Ctrl+S` back then. Thanks for giving me nostalgia!

I've still got the very fast muscle memory of "Alt-F S", I used to do it habitually in Word and Excel. Still do it occasionally, then having to then undo whatever it does now (luckily it's usually nothing), but sometimes it leaves the Alt press 'open' so the next letter I press does something unpredictable.

The menu should be closeable with escape according to IBM CUA IIRC

I always did ALT-F4 Y (but I think it is S now) because I like to live dangerously.

I used to overwrite c:\windows\notepad.exe with Metapad. At some point Windows security made this a pain though!