IE Tip: Taking over the “View Source”

Ever wonder how to update the default editor in IE when you want to view source?  Ofcourse by default it uses notepad.exe but say you want to use something nicer like Textpad well here’s the steps to do it.

Step 1: Open up your registry editor, by running regedit from your Start->Run window.
Step 2: Browse the tree structure as follows
            ->HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
            —->Software
            ———>Microsoft
            ————–>Internet Explorer
            ——————–>View Source Editor
            —————————->Editor Name
            ———————————–>(Default)=”c:\program files\textpad 4\textpad.exe”
Step 3: That’s it, go ahead and restart IE and try it out.  It should pop Textpad right up.

Of course these steps will work for any editor, all you need to do is update the right path in the registry.

Now at this point you maybe saying, great thanks for the tip but I don’t have the View Source Editor directory.  Not to worry, if that directory doesn’t exist for you all you need to do is create it and all the keys below as well.  The “View Source Editor” and “Editor Name” should be create by right-clicking and adding a new key.

That’s it, hope it helps.