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Long-time Linux user on a Windows 7 machine, using Notepad++ to edit multiple text files.

Sometimes I can drag a tab out of the notepad++ window onto the desktop to get a new notepad++ window. This is a very nice feature. But sometimes when I try to drag a tab out, nothing happens. I don't see what is different about these tabs or the files they contain. It is repeatable; the same tab still won't make a new window.

I'm not familiar enough with Windows and its strange ways to begin to guess what is going on, unless it's a bug. How can I make all tabs draggable-to-new-windowable, no exceptions?

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  • If you right click the tab and select Move to New Instance do you see the same behavior?
    – uSlackr
    Commented Apr 12, 2012 at 23:05
  • @darenw Are you still facing the problem. I am able drag and drop and create tabs new notepad++ windows without any problem. I am using NPP(6.1).I might not have understood your question...
    – Stat-R
    Commented Apr 19, 2012 at 18:44

1 Answer 1

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Notepad++ doesn't allow the "drag tab to create a new window" feature unless the file that has been modified is saved (or if the file is new). If this problem persists even after the file is saved, try right-clicking the tab and choosing 'Move to New Instance'.

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    +1 for "unless the file that has been modified is saved (or if the file is new)". Until today I had always thought that this was a massive bug with Notepad++, and was at a loss to understand why it hadn't been fixed by the developers, never occured to me that whether or not it worked was based on whether the file was saved!
    – JMK
    Commented Apr 19, 2012 at 17:48
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    Just as a clarification, this is likely not a bug but just a limitation of how it was implemented. Tabs are not isolated into individual processes, and Notepad++ does not support floating windows. So it cannot move data that does not exist into a new instance. The procedure it's doing is basically closing the file, opening a new instance of Notepad++, and having it reopen the file again. It will block the behavior if the data is not saved on disk because it cannot recover unsaved data.
    – Ben Richards
    Commented Apr 20, 2012 at 15:20

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