Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!

[Mojtaba Rezaeian]

Hi
with regards and thank to developers for the perfect free notepad application,
but why after each update selected theme breaks to normal default bright theme? Is updates bounded to user configurations?! Thats really annoying and seems its a non going to report and solve bug after many years that I’m using this application as my default notepad.
I use darkMode deafult template for better eye protection so if its not possible to fix this behaviour please change the preferred default template to be dark and not so shiny bright.

Andalso there is a good reason I say to please prefer darkmode to be default theme in notepad++. Remember the old computers linux shells and command/DOS envioronments which users was working for long time looking at the monitor they always was using dark backgrounds and a programmer and someone who wants to work more than hours of coding and looking at monitor its 100% clear he will prefer to look at dark screen for eye health and not being tired soon and most of Notepad++ fans are these type of users, and not microsoft windows users to open a little note file which contains a license key for a game to copy and paste somewhere else!

[PeterJones]

@Mojtaba-Rezaeian ,

I am not the developer (mostly just a fellow user who hangs out here to help people, and has grown more involved with the project over time), but…

why after each update selected theme breaks to normal default bright theme

It doesn’t, for me (and for the vast majority of people). Theme choices and other settings are supposed to be maintained correctly even after updating Notepad++, and that’s what most people experience. The updater tries very hard to not overwrite existing configurations (to the point that many people’s themes are out of date, because Notepad++ refuses to overwrite them).

I do not know what you are doing differently that causes it not to work for you. (And whenever we ask people their exact steps, they’ve either never come back to reply, or they cannot say.)

• What version did you use before your most recent update?
• Which version did you update to?
• What were the exact steps you used to update?
• What does ?-menu’s Debug Info say now that you’ve updated?
• Do all of your shortcuts and START menu entries for Notepad++ point to the same copy of Notepad++? If you right click on a file and Edit with Notepad++, does it open the same copy? (You can tell if it’s the same copy by looking at the Debug Info from the previous step.)

Some of my pet theories, though we’ve never been able to explore most of them

• User started with a portable copy, or an installed copy that isn’t in the normal directory, but then the updater installs it to
  • Note: the updater isn’t intended to be used with a portable copy
  • Note: older updaters didn’t correctly remember the installation path, and so would always default to c:\program files\notepad++\, even if it had been previously installed at d:\some\other\Notepad++\ – but that was fixed a long time ago, and the updater that matters for that is the one it downloads when you update, not the version that was active when you installed Notepad++
  • as an alternative for someone with an installation in a non-standard place, and especially if they used doLocalConfig.xml to make it a portable, or if they use the Cloud Directory from the config settings, or -settingsDir command-line option, maybe when they did the installation, they did something differently, so that Notepad++ switched to using the default %AppData%\Notepad++ – and thus, if it didn’t exist before, then it would be created with default settings, rather than pointing to your old Cloud or -settingsDir …
• User ran the installation “As Admin”, and for some reason, the %AppData%\Notepad++\ user-config directory was made in such a way that it’s owned by the Admin, not owned by the User’s account, so the user cannot write to the correct config location
  • this is more for if you change the theme or other setting, but then the next time you run, it doesn’t remember you setting (without an upgrade in between), but the same idea might influence
• User did an uninstall of the old version first, and maybe even manually deletes the old %AppData%\Notepad++ settings directory, and then ran the installer
  • deleting the old %AppData%\Notepad++ would guarantee that Notepad++ doesn’t remember the new
  • I didn’t think that uninstalling the old copy first would delete the %AppData%\Notepad++ , but maybe it does

[mpheath]

@Mojtaba-Rezaeian

There are 2 basic types of user accounts in the latest Windows OSes.

• Administrator
• Standard User

The first is a member of Users and Administrators groups. This account runs as User and can elevate to Administrator using the same profile.

The second is a member of Users group. This account runs as User and can elevate to Administrator by loading an Administrator profile.

Is this operation of install/upgrade being performed from a user account of the type Standard User?

[Mojtaba Rezaeian]

Thank you for quick responses from community and I’m sorry for my late reply,
First I answer simple question:

@mpheath said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

Is this operation of install/upgrade being performed from a user account of the type Standard User?

No, My account is administrator. but I not install notepad++ regularly… I have installed it once on a separate drive(L:\programs\notepad) and use it as portable notepad++ so everytime I reset my windows partition to its most stable backup state updates of notepad++ will not be lost.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

What version did you use before your most recent update? Which version did you update to? What were the exact steps you used to update?

The latest date for my update was exactly the time I opened a note and see white background again so I decided to open this ticket. Current version is v8.4.8(64-bit) with Built time: dec 24 2022 - 19:40:27 This is what I see now. For previous versions I do not remember but I this the last version should be one version before releasing the latest update because its automatically updating and I notice its updated from my background sudden changes!

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

What does ?-menu’s Debug Info say now that you’ve updated?

Notepad++ v8.4.8 (64-bit)
Build time : Dec 24 2022 - 19:40:27
Path : L:\Programs\Notepad\notepad++.exe
Command Line : “L:\Data\Desktop\irc.txt”
Admin mode : ON
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit)
OS Version : 22H2
OS Build : 19045.5371
Current ANSI codepage : 1256
Plugins :
mimeTools (2.9)
NppConverter (4.5)
NppExport (0.4)

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

User started with a portable copy, or an installed copy that isn’t in the normal directory

This is my case I’m so lazy that I’m not interested to reinstall/uninstall softwares or even windows I always config my systems to have an stable backup which could be restored on fastest method (not changing installed application data and I prefer to keep apps separate and portable from windows which is a base to manage everything and if trouble or infection occurs its the main factor which reuires to be reinstalled/restored to a fine healthy state.)

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

User ran the installation “As Admin”, and for some reason, the %AppData%\Notepad++\ user-config directory was made in such a way that it’s owned by the Admin, not owned by the User’s account, so the user cannot write to the correct config location

Now I checked this but this folder(C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming) have full access permissions for all user, admin, and system accounts.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

User did an uninstall of the old version first, and maybe even manually deletes the old %AppData%\Notepad++ settings directory, and then ran the installer

deleting the old %AppData%\Notepad++ would guarantee that Notepad++ doesn’t remember the new
I didn’t think that uninstalling the old copy first would delete the %AppData%\Notepad++ , but maybe it does

I doubt this could be my case, cause I do not delete or uninstall none of these. The bachgrond change is also not just happening after my windows restore, and if happens its logical. but it happens everytime notepad++ show me a warning to update program and when I accept to update it will reset to white background theme automatically.

For the tails of what you asked and what I answered it seems notepad++ is keeping some user configs and options in %appdata% folder which is only good for temporary options which are bounded to OS health and not for user permanent preferences. So I ask you if its possible to move such options to be kept in application install directory as a config file rather than being kept on windows %app_data% folder? Specially for user selected template.

[PeterJones]

Is this operation of install/upgrade being performed from a user account of the type Standard User?
No, My account is administrator. but I not install notepad++ regularly… I have installed it once on a separate drive(L:\programs\notepad) and use it as portable notepad++ so everytime I reset my windows partition to its most stable backup state updates of notepad++ will not be lost.

So is your account the account named “Administrator”, or is it a normal user account that has administrator privileges? Because my Windows account is a normal user with Admin privileges. The two might not behave the same, depending on circumstances.

What version did you use before your most recent update? Which version did you update to? What were the exact steps you used to update?

The latest date for my update was exactly the time I opened a note and see white background again so I decided to open this ticket.

That doesn’t tell me what your old version was before you updated. So I cannot know the answers for “upgrading from X to Y caused my settings to be lost”. Without that, no developer will be able to figure out for sure what’s going wrong, and fix it.

However, you then said,

Current version is v8.4.8(64-bit) with Built time: dec 24 2022 - 19:40:27 This is what I see now.

I am curious exactly what steps you took to “update” Notepad++ if it installed a version that’s 2 years old. if you have to, pretend I’m an idiot who can only understand simple instructions (like “Go to this website, download this link, open the downloads folder, run this executable, use this menu and command, …”)

But since you haven’t given those instructions yet, I will ask a few specific, close-ended questions:

• Looking at Settings > Preferences > MISC, is the ☐ Enable Notepad++ auto-updater checkmarked or not?
• When you updated to v8.4.8, which of the following happened?
  • Notepad++ popped up a dialog telling that an update was available, and that update was v8.4.8
  • You went to Notepad++'s ? menu and chose Update Notepad++, and it downloaded and installed v8.4.8
  • You already had a copy of npp.8.4.8.Installer.x64.exe in your downloads directory, so you just ran that one
  • You went to https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/ , and instead of going to the first entry on that page, which would be v8.7.5, you instead scrolled way down on the page to “Download Notepad++ v8.4.8”
    • if this one, why did you scroll that far down instead of picking the one at the top?
  • You followed a direct link (either from a search or from your bookmarks) directly to the “Download Notepad++ v8.4.8” page at https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.4.8/
    • If this one, where did you find that link?
  • You went to the official GitHub repo (https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/), went to the Releases page (https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/releases) and went to the next (older) page a few times to get to the page that includes v8.4.8
    • if this one, why did you go so many pages into the history and scroll that far down?
  • You followed some link which took you to GitHub, but directly to a page where you could only download v8.4.8
    • if this one, where did you find that link?
  • You went to some other website other than notepad-plus-plus.org or github.com and downloaded Notepad++ v8.4.8 installer from there
  • Something else that I haven’t thought of

For previous versions I do not remember but I this the last version should be one version before releasing the latest update because its automatically updating and I notice its updated from my background sudden changes!

The latest update released was v8.7.5 from December 2025; the version before that one would have been v8.7.4 from earlier in Dec 2024. There are no set of circumstances that i can think of that would have your “update to version” being v8.4.8 from December 2022. Hence, your description of the events boggle my mind.

And v8.4.8 is old enough that the installer probably doesn’t have many of the fixes made to the installer over the last few years, so it’s quite possible that its installer isn’t as robust at keeping your settings as the modern installer would be.

Notepad++ v8.4.8 (64-bit)

This still boggles my mind.

Path : L:\Programs\Notepad\notepad++.exe

Being in a non-standard location, with an installer from 2 years ago, it may have still had a bug where it doesn’t remember you want to install there

Admin mode : ON

As I said above, when you are a normal user who happens to have Admin power, you don’t have to run Notepad++ “As Administrator” – I almost never do, except when I need to edit a file in the c:\windows or c:\program files hierarchies. (Which is very rare, for me.) I believe that not using “As Administrator” is less likely to give you problems like what you’re having.

User started with a portable copy, or an installed copy that isn’t in the normal directory

This is my case …

That’s fine. I frequently run with a true portable. And, in fact, at work, I often used a portable copy but set my file associations and paths so that Windows could associate files with that portable, during a period when my employer made it a hassle to update Notepad++ when it was in C:\Program Files. (They eventually relented, so I went back to a normal installation.)

Now I checked this but this folder(C:\Users\user\AppData\Roaming) have full access permissions for all user, admin, and system accounts.

Well, that’s good.

I do not delete or uninstall none of these.

The bachgrond change is also not just happening after my windows restore, and if happens its logical. but it happens everytime notepad++ show me a warning to update program and when I accept to update it will reset to white background theme automatically.

I don’t see how you could have recently updated Notepad++ from a prompt but still be showing v8.4.8 as the one it updated to!

For the tails of what you asked and what I answered it seems notepad++ is keeping some user configs and options in %appdata% folder

Yes. That is Notepad++'s default behavior. But when you ran the installer, it did ask you whether you wanted to use AppData or not. You are the one who agreed to let it install there.

which is only good for temporary options which are bounded to OS health and not for user permanent preferences.

I disagree vehemently with that statement. I’ve been using the same AppData directories on this computer through its original Windows 10 and all the Win10 updates, through the Windows 11 and all the updates there, and it has correctly maintained those settings. And the %AppData%\Notepad++ setting that I put in on Win10 were the ones I copied over from my previous computer, and probably from the computer before that. My AppData literally has a legacy on the order of a decade. If you think of a decade as being “temporary”, I am impressed with your longevity.

So I ask you if its possible to move such options to be kept in application install directory as a config file rather than being kept on windows %app_data% folder? Specially for user selected template.

If you had un-checkmarked “Use AppData” in the installer, that is exactly what would have happened.

And if you want to change at this point to keep the configuration in the Notepad++ directory instead of AppData, you could

1. exit Notepad++
2. copy your %AppData%\Notepad++\config.xml and %AppData%\Notepad++\session.xml to L:\Programs\Notepad\
3. create an empty file named L:\Programs\Notepad\doLocalConf.xml
4. restart Notepad++

From step 4 on, all of Notepad++'s settings will be stored in L:\Programs\Notepad` instead of in the AppData hierarchy. And, assuming that you had installed Notepad++ with the official installer, you should be able to download the v8.7.5 installer from https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/v8.7.5/ , and run the installer, and I believe it should ask if you want to install in L:\Programs\Notepad\ (which you should say yes to – but if the installer hadn’t stored that L: was the right location, you might have to manually enter L:\Programs\Notepad\ one last time), and it might ask about the AppData (make sure it’s no/unchecked), and it should then update the copy in L: without losing your existing settings – and any future updates should remember those settings and default to them when you next run the update or a newer installer.

[Mojtaba Rezaeian]

Hello Peter

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

So is your account the account named “Administrator”, or is it a normal user account that has administrator privileges? Because my Windows account is a normal user with Admin privileges. The two might not behave the same, depending on circumstances.

No my account name is user, but with administrator privilages.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

I am curious exactly what steps you took to “update” Notepad++ if it installed a version that’s 2 years old

Looking at Settings > Preferences > MISC, is the ☐ Enable Notepad++ auto-updater checkmarked or not?

Thats because I forgot that I disabled auto updates for this reason and I did not expect its more than two years from that time now, but auto updates was enabled at first and selcted template changing was happening after updates so I disabled auto update and after disabling that option I remember notepad++ many times asked me for updating at begining of program and I remember I updated it manually (by accepting that update message) for a few times after disabling update but I decided to accept updates less often specially because of fear of loosing some options and requiring to set them again as like as selecting my prefered theme; and yes Auto update is disabled in my prefrences now, but this background loss was happend recently for a few time, and once exactly when I opened a ticked I thought my auto update option is on and it happend because of update but now I conclude that there must be somethingelse happening separate from updating of program which causes the templates reset too. but I can assure you I haven’t cleared my %appsdata% or restoring or cleaning windows manually and it must be very rare to automatically this happens in my system because I do not install such softwares to clean files or system for me and I do most of the things manually if I see a problem.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

When you updated to v8.4.8, which of the following happened?

Notepad++ popped up a dialog telling that an update was available, and that update was v8.4.8

oh yes recenly this happend and I ignored update I think this template change happens even if I ignore it !! I’m not sure about this but I can tell you for next time if such message come up and I ignore to see what happens.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

You went to Notepad++'s ? menu and chose Update Notepad++, and it downloaded and installed v8.4.8

no I did not updated this way recently

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

You already had a copy of npp.8.4.8.Installer.x64.exe in your downloads directory, so you just ran that one

No

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

You went to https://notepad-plus-plus.org/downloads/ , and instead of going to the first entry on that page, which would be v8.7.5, you instead scrolled way down on the page to “Download Notepad++ v8.4.8”

No
No
No

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

You went to some other website other than notepad-plus-plus.org or github.com and downloaded Notepad++ v8.4.8 installer from there

No because notepad++ have an update option in application and its easier than all.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

the version before that one would have been v8.7.4 from earlier in Dec 2024.

Yess you giving me clues that the template reset is not depending my selection to update or not it always reset my template options after this update warning and make me think the program was automatically updated (Because I trust this app I do not care very much if it update now or later and some time I think I selected yes but in real I was selecting no because of fear of loosing options again and I was focusing to continue reading text file)

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

This still boggles my mind

It was a suprise for me too, I really didn’t knew I havn’t updated this app for such long time (mostly because of template reset which was my logical address to conclude application is updated again so I must do select template again)

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

L:\Programs\Notepad\notepad++.exe

Its correct! in my system “L:” means Large volume drive and I always create big L: partition on my partitionings, keep static large files and medias including small applications and every other things which not depends on harddisk speed and OS and can run on any computers and on slow and old hard disks, which are much cheaper and larger than new M.2 and fast volumes. The L: also is very unique letter and helps me to never loose application addresses and file locations after system change. I just change the old volume drive letter on my hard disk to L: which is rarely happens to be occupid on different systems so its kind of portable. Also V: is a similar unique drive letter for me which is always my chosen Vistual drive just for not mistaking with other drives for example DVD/CD drive or connected portable ones. And my windows drive is mostly C: or D:.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

As I said above, when you are a normal user who happens to have Admin power, you don’t have to run Notepad++ “As Administrator” – I almost never do, except when I need to edit a file in the c:\windows or c:\program files hierarchies. (Which is very rare, for me.) I believe that not using “As Administrator” is less likely to give you problems like what you’re having.

Oh peter, You know a lot!! This is my case too… I’ll tell you why I did this. I sometime code in AHK(autohotkey) so I managed to setup notepad++ to open/edit some files and codes with just pressing a hotkey! saying more clear I have a large AHK file manually written to manage custom hotkeys on my windows and I open/edit many files even itself with its own hotkeys too. For acheiving this I need to run notepad++ from another application(Autohotkey.exe) which would be the parent for notepad++ on that moment and this caused to limit my access to edit some system files from hotkeys. For example when I want to add a line of code to windows system files (like “hosts” file) it gave me error of restricted user so I managed to do something to run notepad++ as adminstrator.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

That’s fine. I frequently run with a true portable. And, in fact, at work, I often used a portable copy but set my file associations and paths so that Windows could associate files with that portable, during a period when my employer made it a hassle to update Notepad++ when it was in C:\Program Files. (They eventually relented, so I went back to a normal installation.)

I do not prefer this because after uninstall/reinstall I need to do my customizations windows and its apps relations to notepad++ again and they are too many, and I even can not remember all things I did after these years. For example now I can not remember what I did to give notepad++ administrator privilages when it is started from another app, I just searched google and used some tricks guys used and suggested to do this.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

Yes. That is Notepad++'s default behavior. But when you ran the installer, it did ask you whether you wanted to use AppData or not. You are the one who agreed to let it install there.

So I can reinstall it again and choose right option. I think I can handle it now.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

I disagree vehemently with that statement. I’ve been using the same AppData directories on this computer through its original Windows 10 and all the Win10 updates, through the Windows 11 and all the updates there, and it has correctly maintained those settings. And the %AppData%\Notepad++ setting that I put in on Win10 were the ones I copied over from my previous computer, and probably from the computer before that. My AppData literally has a legacy on the order of a decade. If you think of a decade as being “temporary”, I am impressed with your longevity.

I really respect your decition and opinion, I can not say anything other than thank you for your helpful messages guiding me a lot.

@PeterJones said in Selected theme (in style configurator) resets back to default after every program update!:

From step 4 on, all of Notepad++'s settings will be stored in L:\Programs\Notepad` instead of in the AppData hierarchy

Now I ran to step 4 and downloaded latest install version after that but I could not find “AppData” checkbox in step after choosing “L:\Programs\Notepad” (and it was “c:\program files\notepad++” by default) so I stopped. Isn’t it better to copy and replace all files from zipped protable version to “L:\Programs\Notepad”??