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SYS TXT
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Convert SYS to TXT

Can you convert SYS to TXT?
Verified by Adam B.· reviewed by FE Editorial ·updated Jul 12, 2026
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Is it possible to convert SYS to TXT?
No - not a direct conversion.

A Windows .sys driver in C:\Windows\System32\drivers is a compiled PE binary - opening it in a text editor shows control characters and garbled symbols. The only exception is legacy DOS files like CONFIG.SYS, which are already plain text and open in Notepad without any conversion.

No direct path
Also to TXT: RTF · KKSRC · HVE

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Tested on macOS, Windows & Linux
Last verified Nov 2026

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Why convert SYS to TXT?

A .sys driver is a Portable Executable binary holding machine code and data structures, not text; it starts with the 'MZ' header followed by compiled instructions. The .sys extension also covered plain-text configuration files in MS-DOS (e.g. CONFIG.SYS), but those are entirely different file types sharing the same extension. A compiled driver binary contains no text equivalent to extract.

How to convert SYS to TXT

Notepad FREE

For legacy DOS .sys files only (e.g. CONFIG.SYS): open directly in Notepad - these are already plain text and require no conversion tool.

Sysinternals Sigcheck FREE

Run Sigcheck on the .sys file to extract human-readable version info, company name, and digital signature data - not a text conversion, but a way to identify what the driver is.

About these formats

.SYS Windows Driver File

A .sys file on modern Windows is almost always a device driver - kernel code that lets Windows communicate with hardware such as a GPU, network adapter, or storage controller. You do not…

Open .SYS details →
.TXT Plain Text File

A TXT file is plain, unformatted text - the simplest document format on any computer. Double-click it: Windows opens it in Notepad, macOS in TextEdit, Linux in gedit. Nothing to install. If…

Open .TXT details →

Quality & what to watch

  • Windows driver .sys files in C:\Windows\System32\drivers are compiled PE binaries; opening them in a text editor produces binary garbage, not readable text.
  • Reverse-engineering a driver binary to assembly code (e.g. using Ghidra) is a distinct discipline, not a conversion to plain text.
  • Legacy DOS .sys files (like CONFIG.SYS) are plain text; the two types share an extension but are entirely different file formats.

Frequently asked questions

Why do some websites say you can convert `.sys` to `.txt`?
They describe opening raw binary bytes in a text editor - the output is unreadable garbage, not useful text.
Can I read any human-readable content from a `.sys` driver?
Partially - tools like Sysinternals Strings extract printable character sequences (error messages, version strings) from the binary, but the result is fragments, not structured text.
How do I tell whether my `.sys` is a driver or a DOS config file?
If it is in C:\Windows\System32\drivers, it is a compiled binary driver; if it is a root-level file named CONFIG.SYS, it is plain text.