@MelchiorGaspar

Looks like a Windows 11 bug. When an installer calls regsrv32.exe, dllhost.exe crashes. This also happens with other installers. However, I don’t know where to report this error to Microsoft.
The ‘good news’ is that apart from the extended installation time, there don’t seem to be any other consequences.

Hello, @mm-tsuchi, @terry-r and All,

@mm-tsuchi, The behavior, that you’ve found out, seems definitively a bug , I’m afraid :-((

Let’s test with the beginning of the change.log file, copied in a new tab :

Notepad++ v8.8.7 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Sign Notepad++ binaries with GlobalSign certificat to fix false-positive alerts. 2. Fix Monitoring in one view affects selections and position in second view. 3. Fix Shortcut Mapper memory leak issue. 4. Enhance Perl FunctionList for class. 5. Fix pressing Alt or Tab causes controls redrawing problem in UDL dialog. Notepad++ v8.8.6 new features & bug-fixes: 1. Add capacity of pasting multiline into Find/Replace fields. 2. Improve UAC in Notepad++ for seamless elevated operations. 3. Fix Pin Tab operation being too long with many opened documents. 4. Add 2 new full-readonly modes via command line argument (-fullReadOnly & -fullReadOnlySavingForbidden). 5. Add apply/remove read-only for all documents commands. 6. Column Editor enhancement: GUI input fields now support radix to match the output format. 7. Add Window dialog "File Modified Time" sorting capacity. 8. Fix NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG not working issue & define the pluginMessage usage protocol. 9. Fix pasting from column mode to multi-selection issue due to different EOL. 10. Add NPPM_GETNPPSETTINGSDIRPATH message to get Notepad++ settings directory path. 11. Enhance SQL function list parser. 12. Fix C# function list not working with comments. 13. Add function list ability for CSS. 14. Allow user to customize max selected chars to auto-fill "Find what" field. 15. Restore undo/redo behaviour in Find/Replace fields after Copy/Paste or Ctrl-F. 16. Fix text corruption issue caused by selection within multibyte characters. 17. Fix DOCTYPE styling in xml and html. 18. Fix double clicking on edit zone border creates a new tab issue. 19. Update cURL in WinGUp (Notepad++ updater) for fixing security issue CVE-2025-5399.

And let’s start with a fresh portable v8.8.7 release of N++. After launching Notepad++.exe for the first time, if you move to the Preferences... > Searching panel, you should see this snapshot :

ba0aed16-e512-4b4d-bf11-8d3cbde6d7b5-Capture d'écran 2025-11-18 103552.png

So, you can verify that, by default, the two options Fill Find Field with Selected Text and Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected are checked

In this configuration, no problem at all regarding the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands which work as expected !

Now, as soon as you unchecked the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, note that it also unchecks, automatically the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected option and the Max characters to Auto-Fill Find Field from Selection option, as well !

With that new configuration :

Double-clic on the first Add word of the text

Open the Find dialog ( Ctrl + F )

=> The Find what zone should be empty ( logical, because of the settings ! )

Note that the Wrap around option is checked by default and the search mode is set to normal

Type the word Add in the Find what zone

Click once on the Find next button to jump to the next occurrence of the Add word

Close the Find what zone ( Esc )

You can check that the F3 / Shift + F3 shortcuts ( Normal search ) or the Ctrl + Alt + F3 / Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F3 shortcuts ( Volatile search ) work as expected

However, the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands do nothing. This is also logical because of the new settings !

Now, just put the caret within any Add word. if you hit the F3 key, it does find the next Add word ! Don’t be mistaken : it found the Add word just because the Find what zone still contains the Add word as the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected is uncheked

To be convinced, simply put your caret within an other word Fix : hitting the F3 key still search the next occurrence of the Add word and not the Fix word !

Now, double-click on any Fix word. The only possibility to search this new word is to use the Alt + Ctrl + F3 or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + F3 shortcuts. However, if you open the Find dialog, as this kind of search is volatile, the Find what zone will still contains the Add word !

So, IMO, how to fix this issue :

Forbid the Select And Find ... options when the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, in settings, is unchecked. This seems logical as current selected text never fills the Find what zone !

But, allow the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected setting to be checked, independently of the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option. So, putting caret within any word, would still select this word and placed it in the Find what zone of the Find dialog for search !

Best Regards,

guy038

@me

I printed out a cookie recipe in NP++ and LO Writer

Try to be more explicit. I actually use LibreOffice and, until @PeterJones explicitly stated it in his response, I had no idea what you were talking about when you said “LO”.

@JuergenBelle ,

Further to what @h-jangra said, since N++ v8.8.6, you can just paste your multi-line text into the Replace, and use the Search @h-jangra suggested, and you don’t need the plugin at all…

If your replacement has parentheses () or dollar signs $, it might not work as you expect, so you might have to escape them, as described in the user manual (https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/searching/#substitutions)

I seem to recall that there was a bug in the main GitHub repo about this kind of issue, where it was extremely slow to move tabs when a lot of tabs were open.

I also seem to recall that this issue was solved, probably in the last year. I’d recommend that @Wilson-Azambuja-Porto-Alegre-RS install the most recent Notepad++ version and see if that fixes the problem.

@Alan, listen to @PeterJones when he says to scan your computer for viruses. TextShaping.dll is commonly used in DLL sideloading exploits, and if your executables are trying to call it when it resides in a place it doesn’t belong (your Notepad++ directory), then there’s a good chance your computer has been hacked.

That doesn’t mean you should freak out just yet, just take some steps to ensure that you’re not hacked.

@Rick-Kosters, .docx files are compressed files, so unless you’re able to uncompress them first, you’ll never be able to use a third-party program to search them.

For what it’s worth, 7-ZIP, Pkzip, WinZip, WinRAR, etc are all capable of opening those files. If you do unzip them, you’ll find a number of files and folders. What you’re looking for is most likely in word\document.xml.

@notdodgeball said,

If you are talking the MarkdownViewerPlusPlus plugin by nea, its indeed been dormant for many years, although I suspect it still works and you may have a problem on your end.

I can confirm MarkdownViewer++ still works… in that I still semi-actively use it in Notepad++ v8.8.7-64bit (it’d been a few weeks since the last time, so in case I had misremembered and it was on v8.8.5 that I’d last used it, I double-checked today, and it can still display my Markdown)

@Dragon-Red said,

Do you plan to upgrade the DLL so that this plugin is usable again?

In case you were curious, this Community Forum is the Community of Notepad++ users. Further, plugins are maintained by their respective authors or maintainers, not by the Notepad++ Developer, so even if you incorrectly thought this Community was the way to get in contact with the Notepad++ Developer, he’s not the right one to contact when you want an fix for a plugin. (And, as @notdodgeball told you, MarkdownViewer++ is effectively unmaintained at this point, unfortunately.)

@PeterJones Thank you for the explanation and my apologies for the confusion. I meant for both sides of lines to have the same number of dashes. I guess I did not catch that.

Your regex code worked and that was what I needed. Thank you very much!

@PeterJones

Changing only the ink color is much better than nothing, it works very well, thank you!

@Steve-Rhoads

This is a known issue, reported several times. Here’s one of those times (that links to some others): https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/13341

winget install Notepad++.Notepad++

I think the sandbox has winget. It has been a while since I have used it. Use -i if you want to select install options.

@Freon-Sandoz-0 said in Feature Request: Ask before deleting record of current files:

from the record

Maybe it’s about the already opened N++ session files and not about the recent files list?

If so, rather check the Preferences > Backup > Remember inaccessible files from past session.

More info in: https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/session/#inaccessible-files-in-an-active-session

@ModelsRUs ,

Reading the comments on the issue you created, it appears the plugin author has helped your confusion, both with regard to Compare coming pre-installed or not (which it doesn’t), but also regarding uninstalling it.

But for those who don’t follow links to the issue boards, the short version:

Notepad++ does not come pre-installed with ComparePlugin or ComparePlus plugin. It is safe to delete D:...\Notepad++_portable\plugins\ComparePlugin\ (as long as N++ is not actively running when you delete it), and it will not in any way, shape, or form mess up nppPluginList.dll. Not noted in the comments: the nppPluginList.dll essentially tells Notepad++ where to download plugins using the Plugins Admin interface; and while it does read the N++ plugins directory to find out what plugins and versions are currently installed, it doesn’t care if that changes outside its control.

What happens if I install “ComparePlus” without “Compare” being removed?

There would be two plugins in the Plugins menu, and each would set up its own toolbar buttons (and I’m not sure you could tell which buttons go with which plugin). And if you used the ComparePlugin comparison, it wouldn’t work right in Dark Mode (see here for a recent issue about that) the two can technically coexist, but you would just always have confusion over which you are using. the intention is to only have one of the two plugins installed. (And since ComparePlus was released, the intention has been for users to uninstall ComparePlugin and just use ComparePlus.)

@PeterJones ,

thank you for the description! A did it and it works like a charm! It is indeed amazing what’s possible with Notepad++! Likewise it’s also amazing what a friendly and helpful community it has!

@PeterJones @guy038 @W-H @Ava-Thompson and everyone

Thanks a lot for checking out NppVim and for all the support. Really appreciate the feedback and the nice words.

Quick updates:

Repo here: https://github.com/h-jangra/NppVim I’m still actively working on the plugin, adding more motions, fixing bugs and making things feel closer to real Vim. More text objects, better repeat for t/f etc all in progress.

I’m glad to hear interest in supporting the project. I’ll set up GitHub Sponsors soon and will update this thread.

Thanks again for trying it out and giving feedback, it motivates me to keep improving it.
Please feel free to open issues on GitHub for any bugs or features you want prioritized.

@Dan-McGovern ,

-openFoldersAsWorkspace works just fine with -settingsDir and -titleAdd and other similar options, in my experiements.

But, as far as I can tell, once -openFoldersAsWorkspace is specified anywhere on the command line, all path arguments are treated under the rule, “if it’s a folder, put it in the FolderAsWorkspace panel, and don’t open any file-paths directly”.

That seems like the intent, because I don’t think it was considered that notepad++.exe myfile.txt -openFoldersAsWorkspace SomeDirectory\ would be a normal use-case (ie, when adding the feature, didn’t think that you’d want to open a file from one location, plus a folder-as-workspace from another, in the same command-line)

If you don’t have the -multiInst argument, and if you don’t have the multi-instance preference set, then you could break it up into two calls of notepad++.exe

"%np%" -settingsDir="..." -openFoldersAsWorkspace "%workspace%" "%np%" -settingsDir="..." "%file%"

In that incantation, the oFAW has to come first, because of the known-and-never-solved issue that oFAW doesn’t work on an already-running instance of Notepad++.

… But since I seem to remember that you do have the multi-instance preference set, that’s not likely to work for you. In which case, until you do a feature request, and it was accepted and implemented and released, I don’t know that you’ll get exactly what you want.

I’ll update the manual to better explain current behavior with the oFAW option.

@Jerry-Scannell said in backward search doesn't work any longer:

All of a sudden searching backwards through a file doesn’t work and I have to have proper case for strings I am searching. Does anyone know about this? Is it a setting that has changed for some reason? I am using version 8.7.5 if that helps.
Thanks in advance,
Paul

That setting hasn’t changed since 2020 (v7.8.7).

If you are in Regular Expression search mode, you cannot do backward search, unless you have followed the User Manual instructions (https://npp-user-manual.org/docs/preferences/#preferences-for-advanced-users) to set the regexBackward4PowerUser attribute in the xml config file, and restarted N++.

But, as I said, this is nothing new. So a “sudden change” presumably was you choosing Regular Expression mode.

@Pieter-Hoeben

You probably have the “Search Mode” set to “Regular expression”. Change it to “Normal”.