HELP: Notepad++ will not start after plugin deployed via Intune Win 32 app

[Craig Cheek]

I am deploying Notepad++ plugins using Intune. I’m using a powershell script to close notepad++, create the new plugin folder in the plugins folder, copy the plugin.dll file from the script root to the new plugin folder then start notepad++. The Intune install works in that notepad++ is closed, the new folder is created and the .dll file is copied over but notepad++ is not starting.

When I test the script locally on my test machine, it works and notepad++ will open, however; I’m running powershell using a local admin account so when notepad++ opens, it’s opening under the Administrator account. I suspect when the Intune install runs, notepad++ won’t open because the program is attempting to start using the Intune process that is running the install and can’t.

I’m not great with powershell and could definitely be missing something. Thank you for any help or suggestions.

[mkupper]

@Craig-Cheek My guess would be for you to focus on trying to start a process such as Notepad++ from PowerShell. Maybe the path to the exe is wrong.

Normally, Notepad++ will start and be visible when started using administrator or an administrative account. There are a couple of reasons why a newly started instance of Notepad++ may not be visible. The most common one is that when Notepad++.exe is started it first checks its command line for the -multiInst. If -multiInst is not on the command line then Notepad++.exe checks to see if there is already a process named Notepad++.exe running. If so, the newly started Notepad++.exe quietly exits. -multiInst is a command line flag that tells Notepad++ to not do this check.

Are we dealing with a remote-desktop server? I’m now wondering if that check for a running Notepad++.exe process makes sure that it’s only checking the processes running under the local login and ignoring copies of Notepad++.exe that other users may be using. I don’t have time at present to dig into how Notepad++ does that check for an existing running copy of Notepad++.exe. A quick test for you though is to add -multiInst to the command line when you start Notepad++. If it’s visible we now know what the problem if. Using -multiInst is not the best fix and so it’s not the solution.

Normally Notepad++ works on RDS servers which implies that its check for other running copies is RDS aware but it’s still something worth looking for as the Notepad++.exe will only be running for milliseconds meaning you may have thought it did not start.

[Craig Cheek]

@mkupper I appreciate your reply. The path to the executable is correct. After conferring with a co-worker, I was able to resolve this by adding code to get the logged in user account and creating a scheduled task to run as that user to launch notepad++.