@donho no, cannot replicate. I tried using UDL, non-UDL, re-starting NPP after changes etc. New tabs always follows current preferences settings I upgraded existing install to 8.9.9 RC with npp.8.9.9.Installer.x64.exe Notepad++ v8.9.9 (64-bit) Build time: Oct 31 2026 - 18:02:27 Scintilla/Lexilla included: 5.6.7/5.5.4 Boost Regex included: 1_90 pugixml included: 1.16 nlohmann JSON included: 3.12.0 Path: C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe Command Line: Admin mode: OFF Local Conf mode: OFF Cloud Config: OFF WinGUp: present disableNppAutoUpdate.xml: absent Periodic Backup: ON Placeholders: ON Scintilla Rendering Mode: SC_TECHNOLOGY_DIRECTWRITE (1) Multi-instance Mode: monoInst asNotepad: OFF File Status Auto-Detection: cdEnabled4CurrentFile Dark Mode: ON Display Info: primary monitor: 2560x1440, scaling 100% visible monitors count: 2 installed Display Class adapters: 0000: Description - NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 0000: DriverVersion - 32.0.16.2101 OS Name: Windows 11 Home (64-bit) OS Version: 26H2 OS Build: 26300.9711 Current ANSI codepage: 1252 Plugins: CollectionInterface (1.3) ColumnsPlusPlus (1.3.3) ComparePlus (3) CSVLint (0.4.9) CsvQuery (1.2.9) FWDataViz (2.6.7) HTMLTag (1.6.1) HugeFiles (0.4.1) JsonTools (8.6) mimeTools (3.2) MultiReplace (6.2.0.38) NppConverter (4.7) NppExport (0.4) NppXmlTreeviewPlugin (2) PythonScript (2.1) Search++ (0.7.1) XMLTools (3.1.1.13)