Code Comments

Notepad++ launcher batch file

The otherwise excellent Notepad++ application has an issue that sporadically causes its langs.xml file to become corrupt upon shutdown. This means that the next time you launch the application it will tell you just that, and none of your code will have syntax highlighting. I got so annoyed with it happening I knocked up the following little batch file to automatically replace the previous langs.xml file with the back-up copy, before launching Notepad++;

@echo off
cd "c:\Program Files\Notepad++"
del langs.xml
copy "langs.model - Copy.xml" langs.xml
"notepad++.exe"
EXIT /b

To use it, just create a new text file on the desktop and rename it “Notepad++ Launcher.bat”, or whatever takes your fancy – so long as it ends in “.bat”. If necessary, alter the paths to suit your chosen install directory, then save it, close it, and click on it whenever you want to launch Notepad++ with a fresh langs.xml file.

Eagle eyed viewers will note that you don’t actually have to change directory in the batch script – you could use an absolute path each time, but I like doing it the way it does it.

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