alt Hacker NewsThe documentation doesn't make this entirely clear, but I think these are two separate things: the original `edit` command which is built into Windows 11 (and has been built into prior Windows releases), and a replacement written in Rust that can optionally be installed.
Note that my link is dated 2023, whereas Wikipedia says that Microsoft Edit was first released in 2025: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_Editor
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The old EDIT never shipped with any 64-bit Windows IIRC, since it was a 16-bit MS-DOS application. I believe 32-bit Windows 10 has it..?
As someone who (mercifully) only occasionally has to touch Windows machines, I keep forgetting this, and then when I try to do stuff I’m flabbergasted that the operating system does not include a terminal text editor. (In a fit of pure desperation I even typed EDLIN into the Command Prompt — no go ;)
That was the case with Win11 about a year ago; if they finally started shipping EDIT64 then hey, that’s one positive recent change in Windows I suppose.
Thanks, this explains the mystery, and now the timelines add up.
So it turns out, EDIT.COM was one of the first - if not the first - computer programs I ever saw and used, back when the first PC showed up in the house. For some reason, someone in the family guessed that 9yo me will be interested in DOS and QBasic. A few years later, I used it from Windows for some time, when I was learning X86 assembly (I wanted to learn how to make a video game, so I went to the local library looking for some "intro to programming" book, and mistakes were made).
Afterwards, it was Borland C++ 3.1 (another TUI classic) and vim/Emacs, and I forgot about EDIT.com entirely. This new Microsoft Edit is something new, and something else, but similar enough that it brought those memories back.
Thanks again!