@J-Mark-Barfield , that was not a “regedit”, that was a normal command-line command all those two commands did was run an instance of notepad++.exe without RunAsAdmin privileges, even before you made the change to the executable compatibility settings it was completely unnecessary all you had to do was exit Notepad++ application completely (so it wasn’t running), then do the steps I explained to get notepad++.exe to not run as admin, and then the next time you ran Notepad++ (either using your shortcut or double clicking on the exe or running the exe from the command line normally or double clicking on a text file or right clicking and choosing Edit with Notepad++) would have run Notepad++ not as admin if you didn’t exit Notepad++ first, then the still running Notepad++ instance would still be running as Admin. Changing the exe properties while the exe is running doesn’t magically drop the running Notepad++ out of Admin mode. And thus your right click would not have worked, because the running Notepad++ was still in Admin mode. all you did by doing those extra commands was close the Notepad++ that was running as admin open a new instance that wasn’t running as admin change the exe properties so that it wouldn’t run as admin next time (I understand that you got it working, so you don’t really care at this point. But I don’t want future people to read this discussion, and come to the wrong conclusion that they need to do your extra steps. Those steps were completely unnecessary.)

I have checked out the https://github.com/donho/xmlSigner project and it is what I needed. I have used that project to correctly pass the XML signing test. I have opened some issues with that project. Here is a quick summary of how the update process works. The wingup code first queries a website to determine if an update is required and the returned XML provides information to be used later. None of the information in the XML is used if it doesn’t pass the XML security check. After passing the security check the code looks for the update status and download location, assuming an update is required. After prompting the user to download the update and finishing the download, it checks the code signing of the installer. Assuming that the code signing is valid and the correct certificate, it starts the install. I will try to document all the customizations to the code from Notepad++, wingup and xmlSigner to make it work in my project so that future users have a place to start, but that will be after I am sure its all working correctly with the new security updates. Thank you @xomx for pointing me in the right direction.

@xomx Thank you for pinging! https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/commit/2c1abe0784543e78dbba0f259b0948cf3a08b8cb

@Coises Thank you, Coises, for your helpful reply. I truly appreciate your support and guidance. Regards, Harmandeep Singh Kandhari

@donho , Thanks for the verifcation, and sorry for the late reponse, I came down really sick that night for about a 5 day period after posting this, and am just getting back into the swing of things. Just wanted to make sure we didn’t need to be redundant about that process. Thanks again for the clarification.

@Ilhan-Yumer , The developer does not read most posts in this Forum. If you would like to suggest such a move to the developer, I would recommend creating a new Issue at GitHub requesting it (https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues).

BTW: 5.1-if your home internet speed is fast enough, setup your own web server to your pc under virtualbox(in case of web server software cve’s/rce’s). I or anyone can help with that. Dont forget to hardening server for security. IMO, this is BAD advice. To suggest to a non-security specialist who runs this as a hobby, that he should self-host, and try to keep up on all the security hardening, is asking him to get hacked even worse than the hack that already happened. He was literally paying a host to provide such services, and the professionals failed; he has now changed providers to a host who has better security procedures. Believe me it’s not that hard to setup a webserver or harden it, especially while backed by a strong community. The risks are different when hosting at home between hosting remotely. The hosting firm may be offered money to hijack, or an out-of-date hosting management software had rce was waiting to be abused.

@Tavi , As far as I can tell, they were unrelated. Scanners such as VirusTotal look at the executable itself, and last year were being triggered by the lack of signing and the self-signing of the executable. please confirm if this issue is related to the notepad++ hijack news dated 2nd Feb 2026? The issue you are referring to, as linked here and described in detail here specifically said, the compromise occured at the hosting provider level rather than through vulnerabilities in Notepad++ code itself. This was a website hack, and VirusTotal and other such AV scans do not detect website hacks, as far as I understand them. See the FAQ, which has the best “table of contents” for the website hack. ALL related followups/discussions must go in Topic: autoupdater and connection to temp.sh.

@xomx said in Help needed - Forensic extractor result analyzing: @donho What is that for (is it for specific HW, OS or network analysis)? Ubuntu on a VPS Fullname of the forensic SW “Forensic Extractor” ballpoint.fr It’s rather to analyze the results to make sure if anything is OK. Note the VPS is only for the wingup.org, whereas notepad-plus-plus.org is on a sharing hosting service. Thank you for the ref I will check this company.

UPDATE: With the release of v8.8.7, Notepad++ is once again signed by a GlobalSign-issued certificate, as well as the Notepad++ self-signed certificate. The above instructions are still appropriate for confirming the self-signed certificate, but with the GlobalSign-issued certificate, the procedure is not as critical.

UPDATE: With the release of v8.8.7, Notepad++ is once again signed by a GlobalSign-issued certificate, as well as the Notepad++ self-signed certificate.

UPDATE: With the release of v8.8.7, Notepad++ is once again signed by a GlobalSign-issued certificate, as well as the Notepad++ self-signed certificate.

https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v886-released/

@Pulp-Sendo Already fixed for the upcoming N++ v8.8.6.

@xomx Thanks for your input, the analysis does seem to be a bit on the… overly cautious or paranoid side. maybe it’s time to find a new resource for risk analysis!