This is a cheap Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 implementation of "sticky notes".  Sticky notes are those little yellow things you get from 3M (they call 'em "Post-it™" notes).  The sticky notes you'll find here are probably not yellow, and they don't attach themselves to documents.  They live only on your desktop and in folders. 

To install StickyNotes, download the StickyNote.REG file and "run" it.  If you download it to a folder or your desktop, just double-click on the downloaded file.

To use StickyNotes, right-click on your desktop (or in an explorer window) and click on "New" in the popup context menu.  Then click on "Sticky Note" in the "New" submenu.  A new sticky note will be created on the desktop or in the folder.  Its contents will initially be "New Sticky Note" or something similar.  You can start typing in your note immediately to replace the current contents.  To change a sticky note, just click on it and press F2.  Or click once to select it and once more to edit it (but not so fast that you're double-clicking it).  To delete a sticky note drag it to the trashcan, or select it and press the Delete key.  You can e-mail a sticky note to a friend if both your mailers support it, but you can't print or fax a sticky note.

There are a couple of major limitations to this sticky notes implementation.  First the note cannot be longer than about 250 characters.  Second the note cannot contain any characters not allowed in a Windows 95 filename.  These excluded characters are / " : \ < > | ? and *.  Periods, spaces and commas are allowed.

You will probably recognize these restrictions as the same ones for Windows 95 filenames.  That's because the entire sticky note is really an empty file whose name constitutes the whole note.  Understanding this will help you use sticky notes and understand their behaviors.

It really is a cheap implementation.  I mean, there's absolutely no new code involved.  It's all a registry trick.  Here's what happens: the registry is modified to support a new file extension, ".stickynote".  This extension has a special icon associated with it and it has a "ShellNew" method, which basically makes it show up in the context menu for your desktop.  When you create a new sticky note, you are really just creating an empty file with a particular icon and default name. 

By the way, if you "Open" a sticky note it will launch Notepad with the blank file.  You can type stuff in there if you want and save it.  Later when you open the sticky note again the stuff you typed will still be there.  This could be considered a useful extension to sticky notes, I suppose. 

If you don't like the icon I chose for Sticky Notes, you can change it by opening Explorer and clicking View -> Options -> File Types.  Find "Sticky Note" in the list and click "Edit".  Then click "Change Icon".  You can change it to an arrow, or to any of the other icons there.  A couple of my favorites: Explorer.EXE, icon #5 is a blank icon; Shell.DLL,30 is a big hooked arrow; Progman.exe,28 is the default icon, a push-pin in a yellow note (Thanks to Randy Lenhart for finding this one for me).

I wish I could take credit for this idea but it's not mine.  I used filenames for quick notes in the beginning, but I didn't come up with the idea of creating a file type for it.  I first saw that idea in a magazine, and since then I've seen it on web pages and in newsgroups.  I customized it a little bit, but the basic idea is the same as everyone else's.  The main twist I added was that I put it all in a neat little .REG file so you don't have to do anything weird to get it to work.