And yes it was due to NotepadStarter.

Thank you.
Mondrian

Notepad++ does not remove Windows’ notepad.exe.

Under normal circumstances, if you use the Start menu and type notepad, it should still be there. If you use the Start menu’s Run dialog and type notepad.exe, it should still run. If it’s not there, it’s not because of anything that Notepad++ did (natively, without your express). However, I know that Microsoft is changing how its notepad app is implemented and installed, so maybe something happened (independent of Notepad++) that now requires you to download a new version of MS Notepad from the Windows Store (or whatever it calls itself these days).

That said, there is a plugin for Notepad++ called “NotepadStarterPlugin” – if you (or someone acting on your behalf, like a relative or your IT department; from here on, “you” means “you or that individual or department”) installed that, then it’s possible that running notepad.exe or its equivalent is redirected to running Notepad++: but that only happens if you installed that plugin… at which point, it would be you, not Notepad++, that hijacked Windows Notepad.

And the Notepad++ manual does describe a way to convince Windows to run Notepad++ instead of MS Notepad using a weird “debug mode”, as found in the Notepad Replacement section; however, once again, if you followed those instructions, then it was you, not Notepad++, that hijacked Windows Notepad.

Finally, maybe you just mean that if you try to open a .txt file or similar by double-clicking, that it opens with Notepad++ instead of Windows Notepad. If this is the case, it’s because you changed your default application (“file association” in the old parlance) for text files – whether by choosing an option when installing Notepad++, or by setting the association yourself, or doing an Open With from Windows Explorer and selecting “always use Notepad++ for files of this type”, or by using the Notepad++ Preferences dialog. In any of those cases, it was you, not Notepad++, that “hijacked” Windows Notepad.