But since any Reasonable Notepad++ User™ ;-) will always have Notepad++ running, then just put Notepad++ in your Startup list, and if you have Notepad++ set to remember the current session (default condition), then the next time it runs, it will open the same files.

I am a reasonable user :-) and will put NP++ on the startup list.

I’ve never heard of such a thing (and my experiment after reading it could not replicate it with MS Word). While I will assume that Word/Outlook really do behave like that for you, I don’t know how make it work like that for me, nor do I know how any mere mortal application like Notepad++ would be able to take advantage of such magic.

As far as I know, if you want Windows to keep the current state of applications, use Sleep Mode instead of actually shutting down. If you do that, all applications, including Notepad++, will wake up in the state they were in when you put the computer to sleep.

But since any Reasonable Notepad++ User™ ;-) will always have Notepad++ running, then just put Notepad++ in your Startup list, and if you have Notepad++ set to remember the current session (default condition), then the next time it runs, it will open the same files.