2024 marks the 30th birthday for UltraEdit. With the average lifespan for software products estimated at 6 โ 8 years, this is no small feat. Thus, itโs with gratefulness and humility that we recognize and celebrate this milestone in an often volatile and always competitive industry.
Almost exactly 30 years ago, UltraEditโs original author Ian Mead introduced his new Windows text editor โ at that time, a side project named MEDIT โ to an online CompuServe software library with little more than faith and hope for its future. (You can still read his original inspiring story here).ย
In the burgeoning software industry of the 90s, UltraEdit found quick adoption with both individuals and larger companies for its reputation as a performant, versatile, and trustworthy text editor โ something that still holds true today. For many users, UltraEdit’s ability to open large files of any size thanks to its novel disk-based approach to editing was (and still is) compelling enough to make UltraEdit the editor of choice for engineers, teams, and even entire corporations.
Screenshots of UltraEdit v4.10 โ from 1997.
Initially introduced as a 16-bit application for Windows 3.1, UltraEdit kept lockstep with technology with the release of a 32-bit counterpart for Windows NT/95 and adopting a โ-32โ suffix to distinguish the two versions. Several years later, a 64-bit version would follow and is now the standard version in use.
As UltraEdit continued to grow in popularity, Ian recognized the need to build a team and organization that could service the many aspects of the growing product. This entailed many hires for various roles across engineering, QA, customer support, and marketing, as well as a partner and vice president, Richard Knott, to help steer the vision for UltraEdit. Believe it or not, UltraEditโs first hire, Troy Pennington, is still with us today as QA and Support Manager!
The evolution of the UltraEdit website. Who remembers building web pages in tables?
These three decades have seen some major milestones: we released UEStudio, a version of UltraEdit with additional developer power tools. We brought UltraEditโs sister product UltraCompare to market, as well as several other products including UltraSentry (now EOLโd), UltraFinder, and UltraFTP. We stepped into the Mac and Linux space with multi-platform offerings of UltraEdit and UltraCompare. We celebrated our one millionth userโฆnow, many times that. We heard from customers about how our products were being used in NASAโs Mars rover program, genetic sequencing in the human genome project, and many other fascinating scientific and technical projects.
Throughout the journey, weโve steadfastly centered on our โnorth starโ instilled by our founder years ago: always do whatโs right for the customer. And while interpretations of “right” may have varied, what hasnโt changed is our commitment to actively listen and promptly respond to your valuable feedback in service of that core value.
That brings me to the very best part of this 30-year celebration: you. I am extremely grateful for our loyal customers who have helped us become what we are today. Many of our biggest product advancements and breakthroughs are thanks to you: your posts, your emails, your suggestions, and your willingness to work directly with us in understanding your unique needs and challenges. We embrace that spirit of cooperation and collaboration. It fuels us every day. For our part, thereโs nothing more satisfying than hearing from a delighted user whoโs solved a unique challenge with our “Swiss Army Knife” text editor.ย
So while there have been many transformative changes over these years, including a transition to new ownership, our mission and vision remain unchanged. Our team is still largely intactโฆand growing! Our core values established by our founder 30 years ago still guide us. Weโre excited about what the future holds for our products and our customers (stay tuned!). We will continue talking to you about the problems youโre facing in your daily work and what we can do to help you solve them. And we will continue doing whatโs right for you, because if weโve learned anything through this journey, itโs that if we take care of our users first everything else will follow. Thirty years of text editing excellence and success have proven it.
We hope you enjoy the 30th major release of UltraEdit in v2024.0. And thank you again for an amazing three decades. Hereโs to three more! ๐ฅ
Congratulations!!! Incredible!
Thanks Ray!
It’s great to look back. I miss Ian Mead’s Christmas messages.
Thanks Andrew. I can assure you he misses writing them as well. Appreciate your support over the years.
I bought version 5.21 from 1998 and used it on my Windows 95 system.
Amazingly, it just keeps on working — still using it today on Windows 10.
Wow, you’re still using v5.21?! So much for planned obsolescence ๐ Thanks for the support over the years!
I probably have used UltraEdit since around 2008, by 2011 it was a regular tool in my toolbox mostly because of Column mode. As other things fell behind or had issues I made the switch to UEStudio for good. In my opinion, it is not just the quality of the product but also the staff and support who have always been responsive and listened to my needs even seeing changes directly related to my issues. And even if I was just one tiny part of a ripple it feels good.
I fully support and proclaim the accolades of these products and their staff.
I have said it many times but once again Fantastic Job everyone, CONGRATULATIONS! Be proud, be Blessed!
Jason, I remember your name from a support ticket or two back in the day. We’re where we are today thanks to folks like you. Thanks for your support over the years!
I first came across UltraEdit in early 1995, and used it to hand-code our website using HTML 1.0 (and well before there were website-building apps). 29 years later, I am still using it. UltraEdit (and now UEStudio, which has long been my daily-use editor) and I have grown in skill and capability together, and it really is the best product of its kind on the market. Thanks for making my coding life easier!
Wow, thanks Steven! Here’s to 30 more years of productive and joyful coding ๐ฅ
I just checked the email I have squirreled away on Eudora and found the following, dated 9 Nov. 1997, in an exchange with Ian Mead:
>I downloaded UltraEdit-32 Version 4.40c and have found it one of the
>best text editors I’ve ever used. I want to become a registered user.
>I guess that means I’ll have to retire my XYWrite Version 1.0 which I
>thought I couldn’t live without.
>
My 1997 opinion has never changed. My editing needs are simple website stuff, but it’s never failed me. The few times I’ve needed tech support, you’ve been a quick email away. What’s not to like?
Thanks Charles…we appreciate your support over the years!
I’ve used UE and UEStudio for twenty five years and it has made my life so much easier.
Thanks for a great product.
You’re welcome, Deron. Thanks for your support for so many years.
I’m happy to say that I started using UltraEdit since I started working at the end of 1995 … probably started using it in 1996.
Congratulations on a very useful and important tool!
Thanks Bassam for being a part of our user community for so long!
I have been using UE since around 1997 if I’m remembering correctly. I have worked for at least 5 different companies during that time and promoted UE to all. Subsequent team purchases were made because of how well the product performed and its growing use. I am now retired and still use it at home. Other than Windows, I cannot say there is any other software product that I still use. As a Full Stack Developer, I highly recommend UE and its associated products.
Thanks Bob, it’s great to hear from you…We appreciate you being an UltraAdvocate in the workplace!
I’ve had a lifetime license a long time. How can I find out when I first bought ultraedit?
My email address may have changed over the years but I’ve always been in Ottawa
Hey Charles, email us at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to look up your UltraEdit license for you.
I remember starting to use EU first time about 30 years ago. After starting my own business soon 20 years ago I have used UE almost daily.
For me UE is a very good tool that I intend to use as long as I need an editor for my work.
Hi Petri, we’re glad to hear that UltraEdit has served you and your business so well! Thanks for the comment.
I agree that the performance and functionality of UltraEdit was good and is still improving. The downside of this development is the price structure. Compared to other good editors, UltraEdit is too expensive.
In 1995 I had to load a 100,000 record file. Nothing Microsoft made could handle it. Did some minimal internet research and found an alternative text editor to NotePad. To my amazement, I could load all 100,000 records in UltraEdit!
Fell in love with it – select any font, still use Fixedys to this day, line highlighting, different backgrounds/foregrounds,(!!!), .bak files recent files, word wrap – pasting a huge string from a main frame download and use word wrap to view it at 98 characters per line, projects, column format – soooo cool for parsing select columns of those same main frame downloads, also line break search-and-replace as main frames have different carriage returns, select file extensions – very important in the days of .ini, .bat, .config files, you could edit a batch file from within the editor instead of the DOS prompt.
Still have v7.0, use it every day -used it just now to copy these comments for a backup in case I close the web page. Also have the most recent, paid subscription version. Use it maybe once a year – hate the new icon – but keep the subscription updated simply because after 25 years, I’ve gotten more than what I had paid for in v7.0.
Thanks for the comment. These are the kinds of stories we love! And still using Fixedsys…wow! That’s loyalty.
Wow. I’ve been using UltraEdit almost since the beginning, and UltraCompare for at least 15+ years. I think I got the original UltraEdit on one of those shareware CDs or was it a floppy? — the one’s that were sent out with “Compute” or some other computer magazine in the late 90’s, and have been using ever since. I often feel bad having purchased a lifetime upgrade plan so long ago, but not unhappy to see this software continue to progress.
Am very happy to see this milestone for you… Cheers to the UltraEdit team, and Mr. Mead for this success.
Hi Danyal, thanks for the comment and kind words. Glad to hear you’ve gotten nearly
a “lifetime” out of that lifetime of upgrades!
I’ve just checked my mail archive; in 1998/1999, many newsletters recommended UE for ease of use and performance – BTSoftware, HWG-Basics, ASPNEWB, perl-win32, DHTML, and RedHat. My first email (I can find quickly) from Ian for a UE reg code was July 2000, v7.10b, with a UC Pro code for v1.00 (Released 10/12/04). Now that I have virtual PCs and a Raspberry 5, connecting via SSH to edit from 1 system is brilliant. With UEStudio, the next step is to get Git up and running. I’ve used many editors in 30 years, and UE is still the best. I paid for a 2nd license to use at work as they wouldn’t buy it for me.
Hey Steve, wow, thanks for sharing how UltraEdit is an integral part of the work you do! These kinds of testimonials make us smile!
UltraEdit is a superb editor that I have used for some 29 years. Unfortunately it has priced itself out of the market so I’ll have to keep using my old permanent version.
I have been using UE for 25 years. I am a happy and satisfied customer.
Happy anniversary!
On Wed, 03 Feb 1999 21:00:52 -0500 “Ian D. Mead”
wrote:
> Wednesday, Feb 3 1999
>
> Dear Marty,
>
> Thank you for the corrected card information and for registering 1 user of
> UltraEdit-32. I hope this editor continues to meet your editing needs.
>
> Please note, your credit card will be charged in the name of IDM Computer
> Solutions, Inc. the sum of (US)$30.
>
> PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE.
[…]
> Sincerely yours,
>
>
> Ian D. Mead
>
> ********************************************************
> * Ian D. Mead *
> * IDM Computer Solutions, Inc. *
> ********************************************************
Hi Martin, thanks for the well wishes and for sharing that artifact of UltraEdit’s history! I recognize it well ๐
I’ve been hooked on Ultraedit since the time it was still a free download. When a lifetime licence was offered I jumped on it knowing I would be using it for the rest of my life. I have no regrets. Support has been very responsive to the few issues I raised. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Claude…sounds like it was a great investment! We appreciate your support.
Ben and team–
Congratulations. I was early into UltraEdit, discussing service issues over the phone with Ian. You guys are great.
Thank you, Michael! Always appreciate your feedback and interactions with the team.
Ultraedit is a great tool that I started using 27 years ago. Thank you to its creators