Notepad++

For most purposes, the version of Notepad that comes with windows is almost useless.

Notepad++ is probably the smallest, simplest editor in common usage. It understands the differences between windows and Linux text files, and it has plugins to support coding scripts or Python.

If you are working on a home computer or in Azure Labs, install that first from here. In the University laboratories or the VDI, this should already be installed.

If you need to install, install the most recent version.

For programming with Python, I also add the PythonScript plugin.

Testing

Open Notepad++ and if you have installed the plugin correctly, you should see a new menu item Plugins->Python Script. Under this menu, click New Script and enter some code. Save the script.

You can run the script from inside Notepad++, but its a bit of a kludge. I open a CMD window and run the script from there.