# Windows Vista Notepad Question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 8, 2010, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395 "2010-04-08T10:33:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/1 "2010-04-08T10:33:53Z")
With Notepad in XP I can double-click anywhere in a line of text and the whole line becomes highlighted. In Vista however only the word becomes highlighted. Is it possible to revert to XP behaviour and double click to select the entire line? Many thanks. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/2 "2010-04-08T10:46:10Z")
I believe a triple-click will select the entire line. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/3 "2010-04-08T11:02:55Z")
> [@SunSandSuffering](#): > > With Notepad in XP I can double-click anywhere in a line of text and the whole line becomes highlighted. Not for me. I’m in XP and double-clicking just selects the word. I just tried. (Triple or single clicking selects nothing.) Is there a setting for this somewhere in XP (not that I’d want to select lines like that, ugh!). ETA: Well, on further experimentation, maybe triple-clicking selects the word too. I guess it may depend on how fast you are. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/4 "2010-04-08T11:37:40Z")
I can double click and highlight a word and triple click and highlight the line. Vista sp2 here. ---
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/5 "2010-04-08T12:11:06Z")
Mmm, weird - triple clicking selects and then deselects the word and does not do the whole line. Odd that \*\*njtt \*\*has XP with a similar thing indicating that there may be a common option somewhere. (Word does the triple click thing but notepad does not for me). The reason I ask is that I have to copy / paste a load of license codes into various networked computers and have put together a shared text doc with the codes on different lines. The XP machines light up the entire code with a double click but the Vista ones just get the portion of code between dashes. eg. double clicking on: JUR0A-EGDNA-LUM0R-U7PT8-6RBUY would only get the EGDNA or whatever so I have to use the mouse to drag across the whole line. Any further comments please? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/6 "2010-04-08T13:36:03Z")
I think you’ve just got your double-click speed for your mouse set too fast or slow for your hands. So what you think of as a triple-click is being seen by the PC as a double-click followed by a single. Try experimenting with increasing and decreasing the double-click recognition settings. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/7 "2010-04-08T14:12:16Z")
Put the cursor at the beginning of the line and hit shift and down-arrow at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/8 "2010-04-08T14:14:04Z")
You don’t even need to fiddle with settings, just click faster. I’m on XP right now and I “triple clicked” a word and it highlighted it then un-highlighted it. Well, I thought I “triple clicked” it. I went click. click. click. I tried again and went clickclickclick and the entire sentence was highlighted. ---
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/9 "2010-04-08T15:56:44Z")
Thanks for the advice but it’s not a mouse speed thing, honest! We are talking about Notepad right? Not Wordpad or Word where the triple click works fine. ---
**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/10 "2010-04-08T16:03:23Z")
Triple-click doesn’t work in Notepad. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/11 "2010-04-08T18:30:43Z")
Oh, sorry - quite right. I somehow missed the part about it being Notepad, where 3x-click doesn’t work. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/12 "2010-04-08T22:10:10Z")
If Notepad isn’t working, try Notepad2. See if that works for you: > **[Notepad2](https://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad2/)** > > Download Notepad2 for free. A small, fast and free text editor with syntax highlighting for HTML and other common languages. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/13 "2010-04-10T07:30:21Z")
> [@yoyodyne](#): > > Put the cursor at the beginning of the line and hit shift and down-arrow at the same time. Or click right before the first letter of the line and then drag down a little. The entire line should be selected. In the example: JUR0A-EGDNA-LUM0R-U7PT8-6RBUY Click right before the “J” and drag down. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/14 "2010-04-10T07:33:00Z")
> [@xash](#): > > If Notepad isn’t working, try Notepad2. See if that works for you: > > [Notepad2 download | SourceForge.net](http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad2/) You could also just open the file in Wordpad, which every XP/Vista/7 computer should have. ---
**Author:** ![SunSandSuffering](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@SunSandSuffering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunSandSuffering)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2010, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/windows-vista-notepad-question/535395/15 "2010-04-10T22:57:14Z")
Thanks very much for all the suggestions - the best course of action seems to be to associate .txt files with wordpad on all the PCs. Thanks Dopers 🙂