Windows 10 has no built-in option to customize the button, but you can make a single change to Windows Registry to modify the Note button.
Modify Note Button in Windows 10 Action Center
To open Windows Registry, press Win + R, type regedit and press Enter. Alternatively, you can also search for “regedit” in the Start menu and open it.
After opening the Registry Editor, navigate to the following location. To make things easier, you can also copy the below path, paste it in the address bar appearing on top of the window and press Enter. This action will automatically take you to the target key without fumbling around.
On the right panel, find and double-click on value “Uri”.
As you can see, the Uri is configured to open OneNote. For safe keeping, copy the default URI, paste it in a text file and save it. This allows you to easily revert back in the future. To customize the button, you can either enter the URL of a web service or URI of an app. I will show both approaches; follow the one that matches your needs.
For a web service, enter the URL of that note-taking service in the Value Data field and click on the “OK” button to save the changes. Since I regularly use Google Keep for simple note-taking and to-do tasks, I’ve entered the Google Keep URL. If you are using some other service like Evernote or Simplenote, then enter that URL. For Windows Store apps, you have to enter the exact app URI, not the regular URL or file path. For instance, if you are using the Microsoft To-do app, enter “ms-todo:” in the Value Data field. For Evernote enter “evernote:,” for Wunderlist enter “wunderlist:,” etc.
Do take notice that these apps must be modern UWP apps, i.e. you cannot open regular “.exe” apps by entering the file path in the Value Data field, at least it didn’t work for me. Also, you need to have these apps installed beforehand from the Windows 10 Store, and the URI is different for each app. Generally, you can find the app-specific URI on the developer’s website. If you want to restore the Note button’s default behavior, open the “URI” value, enter the previously saved URI and click on the “OK” button. Do comment below sharing your thoughts and experiences about using the above method to modify the Note button.
