What os?
notepad is in the windows folder.
At least it is in w98se.
So I would go in there and see if you see it there..if so just right click it and go "send to desktop"
Or search for "notepad.exe" and see if u find it...maybe just the shortcut is messed up.
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or maybe you need to restore that file.
Im w98se you would run "sfc" and then youd pick the option to "extract one file from installation disk" then youd name the file etc.
In winME there was no sfc but you could do the same thing from the msconfig applet.
I am sure u can do it in xp also but I am not in front of an xp comp