Notepad++ release 8.9.8.1

Coises

@Artur-Harison said:

@Coises
1 file in utf-8
2 file opened in utf-8
3 after refresh, file toggled in ANSI

I don’t get quite the same result. If I open your test file, Notepad++ thinks it is “ANSI.” I have to change it to UTF-8 using the Encoding menu.

Strange behavior. If you add spacebar anywere
Problem is gone.

That is almost certainly this bug.

Edit to add:

If I rename your file to new_1_test.xml I get exactly the behavior you describe: it opens as UTF-8 but reloads as ANSI. That is surely a bug.

Artur Harison

@Coises
I think you’re right.
If you are encode utf 8 and safe. And reload. Against it’s be Ansi. But if add one spacebar. Problem is gone, but if again delete spacebar. Problem is back.
XML lang detector problem! ?
—-
File was edited in utf 8 format.
Encoding obey XML in first line of document.
But after reload, bufer reads as ANSI, and ignored specification encoding.

Artur Harison

This post is deleted!

donho

@Artur-Harison
I don’t think the 2 issues you have are the regressions.
Could you open these 2 issues on Github?

tordenflesk

My layout got corrupted/reset by this upgrade. Plugins etc. are installed but layout, themes fonts etc. are back to defaults:

quick way to restore?

upgraded / Installed via scoop.

PeterJones

@tordenflesk said:

My layout got corrupted/reset by this upgrade. Plugins etc. are installed but layout, themes fonts etc. are back to defaults:

quick way to restore?

Hopefully, it’s just that it used to point to local config but is now AppData, or similar. Can you share ?-menu’s Debug Info?

upgraded / Installed via scoop.

My guess is that the 8.9.8.1 fix for the 8.9.8 scoop problem somehow had that side effect. But that’s just my guess as someone on the periphery. With your Debug Info, one of the experts might have more insight.

rdipardo

@PeterJones said:

Hopefully, it’s just that it used to point to local config but is now AppData, or similar.

As a scoop user myself, I can confirm that it will configure Notepad++ for portable usage by default.¹ Removing the magic doLocalConf.xml file at %USERPROFILE%\scoop\apps\notepadplusplus\current is probably all that’s needed.

¹ This is one setting that’s not preserved during an upgrade (the other being the autoCompletion folder), while the contents of ${NPP_INSTALLATION_ROOT}\{backup,cloud,plugins,themes,userDefineLangs} are kept in sync by means of junctions between the canonical current folder and the versioned one. Someone should open an issue in the scoop repository, I just haven’t found the free time yet.

donho

@rdipardo said:

As a scoop user myself, I can confirm that it will configure Notepad++ for portable usage by default.¹

Thank you for the confirmation.
Are you saying that scoop changed their way to install Notepad++ due to the Regression of failure to open files via Notepad++ symlink paths in v8.9.8?

rdipardo

@donho said:

Are you saying that scoop changed their way to install Notepad++ due to the Regression of failure to open files via Notepad++ symlink paths in v8.9.8?

No. Scoop has always used junctions to persist the user’s config files — before and after v8.9.8 — by linking the (portable) installation directory to a stable %UserProfile%\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus folder, e.g.,¹

> dir %UserProfile%\scoop\apps\notepadplusplus\8.9.8.1

10/01/2026  08:01 PM    <DIR>          .
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <DIR>          ..
09/24/2026  09:58 AM    <DIR>          autoCompletion
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <JUNCTION>     backup [\??\C:\Users\Rob\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus\backup]
...
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <JUNCTION>     cloud [\??\C:\Users\Rob\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus\cloud]
...
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <JUNCTION>     plugins [\??\C:\Users\Rob\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus\plugins]
...
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <JUNCTION>     themes [\??\C:\Users\Rob\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus\themes]
...
09/29/2026  06:20 PM    <JUNCTION>     userDefineLangs [\??\C:\Users\Rob\scoop\persist\notepadplusplus\userDefineLangs]

The problem I was mentioning is with the installation script (available here). Because it always downloads a portable release, the bundled doLocalConf.xml file is extracted — and kept — every time, whether or not the user wants to run in portable mode.

¹ Notice that autoCompletion is not soft-linked, probably by oversight.

donho

FYI: the auto-update is triggered for this release.