The terrible menu bar in the Windows 11 Notepad

# The terrible menu bar in the Windows 11 Notepad Source: [https://blog.yuo.be/2026/09/10/the-terrible-menu-bar-in-the-windows-11-notepad/](https://blog.yuo.be/2026/09/10/the-terrible-menu-bar-in-the-windows-11-notepad/) It’s been seven weeks since I last complained about something in Windows on this blog\. That feels like too long, so here’s a post about menus – specifically, the menu bar in the modern version of Notepad in Windows 11\. That menu bar has, unfortunately, quite a few regressions compared to the menu bar in the old Win32 version of Notepad\. There’s a longstanding behaviour on Windows where you can press and hold the primary mouse button on one of the top\-level items in the menu bar \(like ‘File’\), move the mouse pointer over one of the items in the opened menu, and then release the mouse button to choose that item and dismiss the menu\. Here’s that behaviour in action in the Registry Editor: It’s pretty much the only way I use menus opened with a left\-clickDoes that work in the new Notepad? Nope\. Here’s a rather pointless recording of what happens: Spoiler: nothing useful happensAs an extension of that problem, you also can’t hold the mouse button down and move between top\-level items in the menu bar\. \(I haven’t bothered to make another video of nothing happening for that\.\) Keyboard navigation also has bugs\. You cannot fully navigate between menus using the left and right arrow keys\. When pressing left, it will get stuck on any item that has a submenu, like View › Zoom\. Similarly, when pressing right, it will get stuck when you end up in a submenu\. Here’s that demonstrated in another video: This is basic stuffAnother bug is that F10,[a documented keyboard shortcut for focusing menu bars](https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/accessibility/windows/keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows#:~:text=F10,window), does nothing in Notepad\. Access keys are also shown differently compared to old Win32 menus\. Here’s an example of how they look in the modern Notepad: [](https://blog.yuo.be/_astro/notepad-access-keys.bDxMvt02.webp)The old Win32 way was to use underlines to show access keysI can’t say I’m a massive fan \(I mean, look at the placement of that ‘P’ for Paste\)\. Putting that aside, those access keys are shown whenever you use the Alt key\. They disappear, though, if you then use the arrow keys to navigate\. I struggle to see how that’s the expected behaviour, as you’re still using the keyboard to navigate\. Another oddity is that the menu bar items respond to right\-clicks, as if they had a context menu: At least this problem doesn’t get in my wayBizarrely, that does weird things to the mouse pointer\. But also, if you do it a few times, disabled items suddenly become enabled\. Most of these problems aren’t Notepad problems per se, as the MenuBar component in the[WinUI 3 Gallery](https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9p3jfpwwdzrc)has most of the same problems\. In fact, someone[reported the problem about not being able to use a single long click to open a menu and activate an item](https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/815)in 2019 \(originally for WinUI 2\)\. After five years of little action, someone decided to close the issue \(incorrectly as completed\), stating that it’s not a bug but a feature request and linking to[another issue](https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/5600)\. \(Considering that it’s a regression from Win32 menus, it’s hard to agree with the conclusion that it’s a feature request\.\) That second issue remains open\. And in the meantime, someone else has[opened a third issue](https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/8953)\. I’m familiar with how menu bars are supposed to work, because I implemented a menu toolbar[1](https://blog.yuo.be/2026/09/10/the-terrible-menu-bar-in-the-windows-11-notepad/#user-content-fn-1)in my own software over 20 years ago and made sure all these things work\. Sadly, in 2026, that seems to be too difficult for Microsoft\. 1. I followed[some instructions for how to create a menu toolbar](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/win32/controls/cc-faq-iemenubar)that Microsoft published back then\. \(My memory tells me that they weren’t the most detailed instructions…\)[↩](https://blog.yuo.be/2026/09/10/the-terrible-menu-bar-in-the-windows-11-notepad/#user-content-fnref-1) [Buy me a coffee](https://buymeacoffee.com/reupen)