ShixxNOTE Sticky Notes & LAN Messenger for Windows

What's new in Version 7.net Build 207 released in September 2026

• Fixed notes being lost, one on every start of the program. ShixxNOTE trusted a stored count of how many notes it had, and that count was never lowered when a note was deleted. On the next start the program loaded the notes it could find, renumbered them to close the gap the deleted note had left, and then removed the last entry as surplus. The renumbering had only happened in memory, so the entry it removed was still the only saved copy of a real note, and the same thing happened again on every following start. The program now reads the notes it actually has from the file instead of trusting the count, closes the gap in the file itself, and deletes an entry only after the note has been safely written to its new place. Every note still in the file, including any a wrong count had been hiding, comes back the first time this build is started.
• A note too long to be sent over the network is now turned down with an explanation instead of putting the program at risk. The program noticed the size and said so, and then copied the note into a space of exactly that size anyway, writing past the end of it. The note is now simply not sent, and the message names the note's length and the limit so you know how much to shorten it by. The warning also no longer appears when a note is sent by email, where the network limit does not apply at all.
• Four new note themes were added to the note's Theme menu: Purple, Red, Candy and Green Mint. The twelve supplied themes covered blue, green, pink, yellow, orange, gray and brown, but there was nothing anywhere near purple and nothing red at all. All four are pastel with black text, and they join the pool a random theme for a new note is picked from. Existing users get them automatically the first time this build starts; themes you have saved yourself are not touched.
• A "Restore default settings" button was added to the Settings window, between "Save and Apply changes" and "Cancel". It puts the settings on all three tabs back to what a newly installed program starts with, in one step. It asks before it does anything, and it leaves your notes, saved themes, recipients and groups, the email account and the "Show all notes" password exactly as they are. The settings are restored the moment you answer yes, so "Cancel" afterwards does not bring the old ones back.
• The program no longer waits for the network to be read before it starts. Reading the network neighborhood takes about ten seconds, and until now the notes only appeared on the desktop once it had finished. The reading now runs in the background, so the notes are there straight away. The computers found last time are kept in a file of their own, so opening "Send note to other" while the reading is still going gives you the previous list, and the list replaces itself the moment the new one is ready.
• The list of computers in "Send note to other" is no longer lost when the network cannot be searched at all. Starting the program with the cable out, or with only a VPN or a virtual machine adapter present, used to save an empty result over the names found the last time the network really was there. The program now tells the difference between a search that ran and found nobody and a search that could not run, and in the second case the names already on record are kept untouched.
• The "Send note to other" dialog now switches itself off while it is reading the network, so "Refresh" cannot be pressed again before the previous reading has finished. Every further press used to start another complete reading on top of the one already running, and because each reading asks every address on the network at the same moment, the readings piled up and overwrote each other's results. The dialog comes back the moment the reading is done, with the keyboard focus returned to where it was.
• The font a theme carries now reaches the text you type after switching to it. The font was being set correctly as the note's default, but a rich text editor copies the character in front of it rather than taking the default, so in any note that already had something written in it everything typed afterwards came out in the old font. Nothing already written is touched. All twelve supplied themes use the same Verdana, which is why this was hard to notice; it shows on themes of your own saved with a different font.
• A note now has a thin line between its title bar and the writing area, so the two read as separate parts of the note instead of running into one another. The line has no color of its own: it is taken from that note's title color, made a little darker when the title is light and a little lighter when it is dark, which is what lets it work on every supplied theme and on any title color you pick yourself. Nothing moved to make room for it, so notes are the same size as before and the writing area starts exactly where it always did.
• The program's icon was redrawn. The old one held a single 32 by 32 picture in 256 colors with no transparency, so every other size Windows asked for was stretched from it, and at 16 pixels, the size in the title bar and in the tray beside the clock, it had turned into a gray smudge. The icon now carries six pictures (16, 24, 32, 48, 64 and 128 pixels), each drawn for its own size. It shows the same note, title bar, exclamation mark and torn-off corner as before, now in the colors the program uses for its own notes.
• Saving a note as a picture no longer needs a separate library shipped alongside the program. FreeImage.dll is gone, and the note is now captured once and written straight out by GDI+, which is part of Windows itself, with no second file on disk in between. A note saved as a BMP is now an ordinary 24 bit picture instead of a 16 bit one carrying a color table it had no use for, so it is a good deal smaller, and a JPG is written at a set quality of 90.

What's new in Version 7.net Build 188 released in August 2026

• Changing a note theme no longer strips the formatting out of the note. Picking a different theme used to reset the whole text to one font, one size and one color and remove bold, italic and underline everywhere. A theme now changes only what a theme is about: the note background, the title bar colors and the border. Everything already written keeps its font, its size, its color and its emphasis. One thing to keep in mind: a note written in a light color may need that color changed by hand after switching to a light theme, and the other way round.
• The program no longer freezes while a note fades away. Deleting or hiding a note fades it out over about a second and a half, and for the whole of that time nothing else in the program answered, not even the tray menu. The fade now runs in the background, so everything else carries on working while a note disappears, and deleting several expired notes at once no longer holds the program up for a second and a half per note.
• The trial version now shows how many days are left before it expires. The count appears both in the About dialog and in the tooltip that shows when the mouse rests on the ShixxNOTE tray icon, and both say plainly when the trial is down to its last day or has already run out. The About dialog also names the build number, which makes it easy to tell exactly which version is installed.
• Finding the computers on your network is now ShixxNOTE's own work. The program used to start a separate helper, ResolveIP.exe, wait for it to write its findings to a file and then read that file back. The search now runs inside ShixxNOTE itself, on a thread of its own, and asks every address at the same moment rather than one after another, so a full sweep takes about ten seconds. The same computers appear in "Send note to other" as before, but there is no longer a second program to install alongside ShixxNOTE, no need for the .NET framework, and nothing left running in the background when a machine on the network stops answering.
• The network scan that finds other computers on program start is now more reliable. It no longer hangs on the "Reading network" dialog (which used to also stop your notes from showing), it waits a little longer for slower computers to answer so the recipient list is more complete, and it always finishes on its own.
• ShixxNOTE now finds computers on networks that do not use 192.168 addresses. Office and larger networks that use 10.x or 172.16 to 172.31 addresses were previously left out of the Send note to other list. The program now picks the network adapter you are really connected through, so a VPN or a virtual machine adapter is no longer scanned by mistake.
• Fixed the Gmail app password link on the Email account dialog. The link under "Gmail requires an app password" could stay empty or disappear when you switched the email transport. It now always shows and opens the app password page in your browser.
• Fixed duplicate notes slowly building up in the settings file. A note could be saved under a wrong number and copied over and over. Notes now get their number before they are shown, and the clean-up removes any duplicates that were already stored.
• You can now send and receive email notes without Outlook. A new Email account... button in Network settings lets you enter your address, password and mail servers directly, so ShixxNOTE works with Gmail and with the new Outlook that no longer supports the old mail interface. Gmail requires an app password ↗. The classic Outlook way still works and stays the default.
• Email notes are now read only from the date of the last check onwards, so older notes left in your mailbox are never shown to you twice.
• ShixxNOTE now follows the visual style of the Windows version it runs on. Buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, combo boxes, lists, tabs and the progress bar are drawn the modern way instead of the old Windows 95 look.
• All dialogs were redesigned. They use the modern Segoe UI font instead of the old Tahoma and MS Sans Serif, frames and sunken edges around buttons are gone, and the buttons are evenly spaced and aligned with the controls above them.
• The buttons now carry icons from the Fluent UI System Icons ↗ set that Microsoft also uses in Windows 11 and in Office, so ShixxNOTE looks at home on a current Windows desktop.
• When a note is sent to a computer that does not have ShixxNOTE running, the program falls back to Windows messaging. It used to report the note as delivered even when it was not. It now checks the real result and, if the note did not get through, explains what has to be allowed on the receiving computer.
• The window shown while the program starts, checks email and cleans its data file now uses a plain progress bar instead of the animated video, and the video file is no longer part of the program.
• Two settings that no longer did anything were removed from Network settings: the refresh interval for the network neighborhood and the check interval for new email notes.

What's new in Version 7.net Build 152 released in May 2026

• Modern color palette for initial default note Themes ↗. Fresh and visually appealing colors are now used as the default theme set when the program is first installed.
• New Close and Minimize Buttons (without BMP images) with a smooth hover effect. Buttons are now rendered without bitmap images, resulting in a cleaner look and better visual feedback on mouse hover.
• Note now supports clickable URL and email links. URLs and email addresses are detected in real-time as you type.
• Fixed ampersand character (&) not displaying correctly in the note title bar.

What's new in Version 7.net Build 147 released in March 2024

• I'm pleased to announce that the ShixxNOTE home page is now secured with an SSL certificate. This means all data transferred between the web server and browser remains private and integral. This is an important step in ensuring the security and privacy of users. Enjoy a safer browsing experience!
• On the program start new process is started which is scanning your LAN (network neighborhood). This new scanning program finds all devices in your LAN but it will save only computer names and IP addresses assigned, either automatically by DHCP, or by manual configuration. When you click on the note menu item Send note to other, dialog will appear, where you will see in the Network Neighborhood list, all computers found in your LAN. It doesn't mean that every computer has ShixxNOTE 7.net installed on it.
• On the program start Reading network neighborhood dialog doesn't freeze other windows and now you can see a small video icon on how the program is scanning your network neighborhood.
• New refreshing images are added to the main program settings dialog. General settings, Default note settings, and Network settings now are redesigned. It looks cool now especially Network settings where there are plenty of options that you can change.
• There is no more splash image on program startup and also no more option in the General settings dialog to remove it.
• No more licence-type version. You can now install a program version on all computers in your network neighborhood. You can install ShixxNOTE 7.net registered version in your home or office LAN.

What's new in Version 6.net Build 140 released in May 2018

• When sending note to client which doesn't have ShixxNOTE program installed, program server side will use MSG command to send the message over local network. This feature works only when ShixxNOTE program is running on Windows 7, Windows 10, or Windows 11. Example would be equivalent of writing this command in Command Prompt window:

  MSG * /server:TEST-LAPTOP "Hello user !!!"

  Where character * in command is wildcard for all users on recipient computer named TEST-PC. So the result of the command above would be Window popup dialog on the client computer named TEST-PC located in your network neighborhood.
• When program is once installed it will start itself on every Windows startup.
• On first program start default blank blue theme note is created in the top left corner of your desktop screen. ShixxNOTE tray icon will be first time hidden so if you want to see main program menu including "Settings" dialog you will need to right mouse click on ShixxNOTE icon located near the clock (but hidden because it was never used before).

What's new in Version 6.net released in May 2015

• Sending note via email is now modified and is now working on Microsoft Office Outlook, Windows Live Mail and Outlook Express. When sending note via email Subject of the email is "ShixxNOTE : Note from COMPUTER" and after that string now is added username and computer name of a sender. This was done because there were some troubles with username and company name (in previous version) after you have received email note.
• Now you can find Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) ↗ on the ShixxNOTE program blog ↗ where you can read articles about user experience. Also there are plenty of articles which can help you if you have problems with program
• Many new features, improvements and some bug fixes are added in a program. For example smooth transparency effect when deleting or hiding note, auto detect for web URL's and e-mail addresses, etc.
• Program works on a Microsoft Windows 7 ↗ operating system as well as on the latest Microsoft Windows 10 ↗ operating system (program doesn't require any runtime or framework).
• Critical security bug fixed ↗ which could cause buffer-overflow.
• Important bug fixed. All received notes will be visible after computer or program restart. Problem with disappearance of received notes is now fixed.
• Program now has Windows XP look and feel, also many new effects are added (close and hide note smoothly transparency effect).
• When you send note to recipient(s) expiration and alarm info are transferred also with note. In version 5.net this was not possible.
• New field in "Sent from:" (Send to dialog) or in "Default sent from:" (Setting Network dialog) combo box control is added - "Name:". If user sender write his name in edit combo box, that name and sent time will appear in recipient(s) note title.
• Password must be entered twice when you check option in General Settings dialog "Lock 'Show all notes' main menu item with password".
• In Expire and Alarm dialogs date format is set to short date. Till now it was long date format and some users experienced problems because long date was to big to fit in date field. So now it is short date format and it will fit for all users and countries.
• Few minor and major bugs are fixed.