microsoft word or other word processors

Notepad is the best to edit and create text files without formatting overhead.
WordPad saves you the hundreds of dollars needed to buy Word/WP or hassle with Star office.

To add to Klipperts excellent answer, notepad is necessary for use in files like host.
C:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
this file and many others like it require NO .xxx definition at the end, and if they are appended they will not work, notepad allows this. Also using a commercial (even Office) text file program appends end of line characters to every line and these cause problems in UNIX and most dos programs, remember QBASIC ??

I use notepad a LOT at home.

I often paste small snipets of text from a web page so that I can identify a file I have downloaded.

At work, we use notepad and Word Pad to view, edit, and print data from our product firmware, and test results.
Do you need them?
You need to keep notepad. If for no other reason than it is the core of most of Windows file editors.
Wordpad, is up to you if you are using a more powerful word processor.
At 196K, you won't save much disk space by removing WordPad.

If you wish to clean up your Start Menu, there is no reason that you cannot delete the links.

Chas

Besides all that good answers, sometimes you have small systems that don't need to have a word processor, so, notepad and write are the answer, they use so little memory and help so much.

Believe me, sooner or latter you'll use them

;)

Goodluck,
@lberto