DustyPad v1.1 Released – Multi-tab NotePad Utility

This is the changelog for DustyPad v1.1 — a newer version (v1.2, adding x64 and Windows 10 compatibility) has since been released; see our DustyPad v1.2 guide for the current download.

What DustyPad Is

DustyPad is a free, standalone multi-tab notepad utility with no installation required — just download and run. It lets you keep several scratch notes open as tabs in a single window rather than juggling multiple separate Notepad instances.

v1.1 Changes

• Word count, character count, and letter count added
• Last saved date and time now tracked
• Pad statistics panel added (count/file/date & time information)
• “Save As” bug fixed
• General code tidy-up

If you’re setting this up fresh today, grab the newer v1.2 release instead, which includes everything from v1.1 plus native 64-bit and Windows 10 compatibility.

Does Windows’ own Notepad make this redundant now?

Worth flagging for anyone landing on this changelog today: Microsoft added native tabs to Windows 11’s built-in Notepad, rolling the feature out to Windows Insiders from January 2023 and later shipping it broadly — so “a notepad with tabs” is no longer something you need a third-party tool for if you’re on a reasonably current Windows 11 build. Where DustyPad still has a place is on Windows 10 machines (which never got tabbed Notepad, since the feature is Windows-11-only), as a portable no-install option you can run from a USB stick, and for the word/character/pad-statistics tracking added in this v1.1 release, which built-in Notepad still doesn’t offer.

Screenshot

Download the current release from our DustyPad product page.