System Requirements

Sheriff U3

So what are the system requirements for notepad++? I looked at both the downloads and faq pages and didn’t see anything on it. Main thing I need to know is minimum Windows version. I have a Windows Vista that I want to put notepad++ on. Thanks for your help!

PeterJones

@Sheriff-U3 ,

Currently-supported Windows versions are listed in the project’s GitHub repo at https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/blob/master/SUPPORTED_SYSTEM.md

Per that table, Vista is not “supported” (no guarantees, no bug reports accepted, etc), but it is known to work with v8.4.6. So if you are willing to not get any new features and just stay on that version, you can go to https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.4.6/ and download the installer from the official 8.4.6 download page. (Since you are using an OS released 18 years ago and hit end-of-support 8 years ago, you obviously don’t care about security improvements or latest-and-greatest features, so you might be willing to stick with one version of Notepad++ and not do any updates.)

As a bonus, per the footnote, you might be able to get a newer Notepad++ to work on Vista if you use the “GCC build” instead of the normal executable. If you wanted to try a version newer than 8.4.6, you might be able to get it to work with extra effort on your part:

install the newest version of normal N++ on your Vista machine
if that doesn’t work, go to https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/actions and find the most-recent commit to the master, and click on that row
look for the Artifacts at the bottom
find the link with “GCC” in the name with the right version (64-bit is x86_64, 32-bit is i686, or ARM64) – assuming you have 64-bit Vista, then it would be Notepad++.GCC.x86_64.Release.
Click the appropriate artifact, which will download it.
Open the zipfile and extract the executable from it; copy that unzipped notepad++.exe overtop the not-working notepad++.exe that you installed (usually c:\program files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe)
I will not guarantee it works (again, it’s not a supported platform), but if you run that Notepad++ with the GCC-build, it might work for you.

But, to sum up: Vista is no longer supported for Notepad++; v8.4.6 is the last version known to work; using the GCC-build, you might be able to get a newer version to work.

Good luck in your retro-computing endeavors.

Sheriff U3

@PeterJones
Ok thanks for your help. Probably will just use the last known supported version. Nice to know though that there may be a way to use a newer version.