Notepad++ 7.6 & new Plugins Admin

AJ-Stevens

Where can I find the new Plugins Admin tool? After fresh install (32 or 64 installer), the plugin menu is missing and no Plugins Admin tool. After coping some plugins in the %localappdata%\Notepad++\plugins in can see the plugin menu, but not the new Plugins Admin tool.
Where to find it? I am missing something?

@Max-Brante said:

A question that has been asked a few times in keeps getting ignored: Me and a few others have made a fresh install of 7.6 and we dont’t get a plugins menu or the plugins admin is nowhere to be found.
How to troubleshoot this?

If you installed Notepad++ using another account with Administrator rights but are now trying to run Notepadd++ as a normal user account, you’ll find the Plugins menu missing, as the Plugins Admin and default plugins are installed only for the user account that installed/updated Notepad++. Generally this is the recommended setup for a corporate environment, whereas at home a user may login to their computer as an administrative account.

This is the problem we’re discussing with the developer, alone with the location and permissions of adding in plugins based on various corporate and personal environments requirements. Some corporate environments want strict controls on the delivery of plugins and prevents users from installing plugins (remove any options to), only allowed to use the ones IT deploy. Some corporate environments are happy to leave the Plugin Admin function there, but require it to use Admin rights, and some are happy for users to be able to load in plugins as they wish (though these should be to individual user profiles), and some want to be able to specifically pre-load some plugins on a computer for all users of that computer, but also allow users to install their own plugins, however some prefer that the Machine level IT installed plugins supersede the user plugins if there’s a conflict and some prefer the user plugins to supersede the machine installed plugins.

Typically to force the requirement of Administrator rights for plugin installation, would be to locate the plugins directory under a protected directory, such as Program Files, and via a program setting that is only changeable with administrator rights to ignore/not permit user profile location plugins.

So basically, there needs to be a variety of options added to Notepad++ at installation, ideally as switches, which can be changed in Settings but only by first elevating to Administrator rights, a safe place for these settings would be Machine level registry or installation folder and some behaviour by Notepad++ to use dual location of the install path and the user profile path, depending on what settings have been set. One such setting would determine whether there is any point putting the plugins and theme folders in the current profile installing Notepad++ or whether it should keep these in the installation directory and copy to the next or all user profile that starts Notepad++ on a first run.

Manual Fix

To manually fix it, look for the C:\Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\ folder in your username profile and the username profile that was used to install Notepadd++, you’ll find a “plugins” folder and a “themes” folder, move these two folders from the installer profile to your own profile. Then start Notepad++ and you’ll have plugins menu and the Plugins Admin.

If it is an administrator account, you’ll need the administrator or IT department to get to these files and move them to your profile for you as a normal user account will be blocked from accessing an administrative user accounts profile.

Note that if you install any plugins using the installer account (such as by using Run as Administrator), these are stored in the C:\Users<username>\AppData*Local*\Notepad++\plugins folder, move these to your profile to save redownloading/installing them again.

AJ-Stevens

Maybe also worth explaining for some that %AppData% is a shortcut to YOUR folder, the full path is C:\Users<username>\AppData*Roaming*\ and %LocalAppData% is a shortcut to YOUR folder, the full path is C:\Users<username>\AppData*Local*\

The difference between Roaming and Local? If you had a roaming profile (used in some corporate domain environments), the Roaming folder goes with your profile to other computers when you logon for consistency of settings and preferences between Workstation (computer), whereas the Local is only on that specific machine and does not “roam” with you.

Meta Chuh

@Max-Brante

they don’t get ignored, but most of us are already tired of repeatedly posting the steps and reasons again and again

did you select the option “do not use %appdata%” while installing to C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86) ?
you can check if you look at ? > debug info > local conf mode, if it is on, then you did.

if yes, then reinstall notepad++ from here https://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v7.6.html
and make sure you don’t select “do not use %appdata%”

Mihai Ungureanu

Hello,

My “PortableApps” updated Notepad++ and I cannot control the plugins in any way.

What can I do?

I would not want to touch the system folders and config in any way.

Please let me know.

Regards
Mi

Maxim KP

Hello, When does this bug with plugin will be fixed?
We cannot manually change the directory of the plugins for 100 pc’s we need so that notepad++ still check in program files directory for the plugin directory.
It should be a quick fix for you guys.

dinkumoil

@Mihai-Ungureanu

What do you mean with

I cannot control the plugins in any way.

I guess you updated to Notepad++ v7.6. This version provides no ability to manage plugins (browse list, install, update, uninstall) for portable versions. I assume the PortableApps version relies on the official portable version, thus it lacks the features of plugin management too.

But you can continue to use your already installed plugins. Since Notepad++ v7.6 changed the directory structure required for plugins the program doesn’t load them currently.

I’ve digged in my desk for an USB stick with PortableApps v14.4.1 (it’s rather old but I guess its directory structure has not changed). In this version Notepad++ plugins are installed in <Drive>\PortableApps\Notepad++Portable\App\Notepad++\plugins. There you will find some DLL files whose names should be similar to the plugin names you know from the Notepad++ user interface.

You need to create a separate directory for every plugin as a subdirectory of the plugins directory, which has to be named exactly like the plugin’s DLL file, except the .dll extension. In this directory you have to move the DLL file itself and all other files and folders which are related to the plugin. There might be also files/folders in PortableApps\Notepad++Portable\App\Notepad++\plugins\doc related to the plugin, in this case it is importand to create a doc directory inside the plugin’s own directory and move these files/folders from plugins\doc to plugins\<plugin-name>\doc.

But it is still not guaranteed that all plugins will function properly after doing that, it depends on how a plugin assembles the access paths to its companion files. You have to play around with every plugin to test if everything works properly. If you find a regression (e.g. help or manual doesn’t open, missing icons, errors when starting Notepad++ mentioning a special plugin) try to copy back the related files/directories to their original location. Additionally you should contact the plugin author to request an update that adopts the new plugin hosting model of Notepad++.

dinkumoil

@Maxim-KP

This behaviour is not a bug but it is a decision of the developer of Notepad++ to change the program’s behaviour.

I understand that it is annoying to reconfigure a whole company’s PC (and I’m also not a big fan of these changes ) but you have no choice.

I recommend to wait with that until the next release of Notepad++ because the location to store plugins will get changed once more, but finally, to the %ProgramData% directory, see here.

Mihai Ungureanu

@dinkumoil

Thanks for your answer. However I do not have time for this. I also uninstalled and re-installed NPP so my old plugins are gone now, I will look eventually to one of my backups. I was under the assumption that the new plugin manager is actually better even if maybe not all the plugins are here yet. if the new manager does not allow plugin management as you say, then the new feature is largely inferior to the old one.

For the moment I will uninstall the portable version and install the normal one, hoping you will fix this in the near future. In the meantime I will try to find different portable editors.

I appreciate however your work, keep on doing great things. However I insist on having portable versions on my pcs.

Galen Tackett

@donho The installer for 7.6 requires UAC elevation, and since I’m not an administrator, I can’t install Notepad++ 7.6 even for just myself. I thought this was possible with installers for earlier versions? Or was I mistaken?

I tried unzipping the .7z archive. I can certainly run Notepad++ from there, but the Plugins Admin is missing so I can’t install any additional plugins.

Is there some other way to install, that will allow me to use the Plugins Admin?

Guillaume Bloss

Hello,

as already said, I’d add once more that N++ should be able to manage both 32and 64b pluggins and probably also local and user plugin folder, as for some reason some people who want to use the portable version may not want plugins to be created in a user folder.

For the 32/64b version as already said, sometime you want to use 32b version for plugins and sometime the 64b version for large file (even if very large files may not be opened with N++ …)

the probleme here with the new version is user should make a choice between large file or plugins.
Of course this issue will probably disapear when plugins will be available in both 32 and 64, but not now.
So maybe the right choice would be to work on converting plugins to 64b, some of them are really useful (like compare and XML …)

dinkumoil

@Galen-Tackett said:

The installer for 7.6 requires UAC elevation, and since I’m not an administrator, I can’t install Notepad++ 7.6 even for just myself. I thought this was possible with installers for earlier versions?

Your are mistaken. The installer of Notepad++ required admin rights in previous versions too. This is a Windows restriction and can not be changed as installers copy the installed EXE file to a subfolder of Program Files or Program Files (x86) which are OS protected locations.

@Galen-Tackett said:

I tried unzipping the .7z archive. I can certainly run Notepad++ from there, but the Plugins Admin is missing so I can’t install any additional plugins.

Currently the portable versions of Notepad++ (from ZIP or 7z file) don’t include Plugin Admin. This may change in the furture. Currently the only way to use plugins with portable versions is to install them manually.

dinkumoil

@Guillaume-Bloss said:

…this issue will probably disapear when plugins will be available in both 32 and 64

There are already 64 bit plugins available (for about to 1.5 years). The 64 bit plugin manager is obtainable here, take PluginManager_v1.4.12_x64.zip. Please note: Plugin Manager is currently only usable with Notepad++ versions prior to v7.6 since the location where plugins have to be installed has been changed in this version.

N++ should be able to manage both 32and 64b pluggins and probably also local and user plugin folder

I’m afraid that you will never get this features. I would appreciate them too but @donho , the developer of Notepad++, has decided to simplify things and to reduce the number of installation variants.

Evgenii Puchkaryov

Same issue as @gurikbal singh mentioned. Plugins Admin is not visible anywhere either.
Also if I copy all plugins to the LOCALDATA location, it does not help at all.
I had to go back to 7.5.9 and restore the shortcut for my specific command that used a plugin.
I am on Windows 10

Max Brante

@Meta-Chuh said:

@Max-Brante

they don’t get ignored, but most of us are already tired of repeatedly posting the steps and reasons again and again

Sorry, I was a bit frustrated not being able to use a tool that I really like when I was not able to manage my plugins…

But , anyway thanks for the answers, I got it working at last.

Ahmet Gökalp Ergeç

Hi @donho,

Thank you for NPP.
After I moved to NPP 7.6 and New Plugins Admin, some how I had JSON Viewer 1.24 and JSON Viewer 1.32 together.

In new Plugins Admin, I selected the v1.24 and clicked on Remove button.
Strangely Plugins Admin wiped out the plugins folder.

Thanks to I was working in a virtual machince I was able to roll back to a snapshot.
In case you can’t reproduce the issue I have a copy of the plugins folder.

kind regards
Gökalp

Andrej Ličar

Here’s a powershell module to help with the update of the plugins:

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/IIT.UpdateNppPlugins/1.0

all it takes is a plugin folder and the rest will be done automatically

install:

open powershell window
Install-Module -Name IIT.UpdateNppPlugins

run:
Update-NppPlugins -Path “C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\Plugins”

in fact the path can be any path, a ProgramData or any other custom installation path.

donho

@Andrej-Ličar said:

Here’s a powershell module to help with the update of the plugins:

https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/IIT.UpdateNppPlugins/1.0

Does it work with Notepad++ v7.6 or v7.6.2 ?
For v7.6.2, please check https://notepad-plus-plus.org/community/topic/16645/new-plugins-home-where-notepad-will-load-from

Gian Matteo

After installing the 7.6.x version over the old previuos one, I had to create a folder for each plugin file and put each one into its specific folder

andrecool-68

@donho I greet you!
Is it possible to make the preview window of installed plugins not a hard size, inconvenient viewing of a window … as was done in the old plugin manager.
Imgur

senselocke

I found a fix, at least for my PC. On a Win7x64 system using 32-bit N++, I had the same problem with every post-7.6 version I had installed. None of them ever had the Plugins install correctly. I got it working, finally, with 7.8.9, but it’s likely the same issue as prior versions. I’m replying to this because it seems to have the most information/discussion.

The problem was that the GUP.exe file in the notepad++/updater/ folder wasn’t ever starting. I watched my Task Manager and checked windows error logs… it never started. So I had a hunch, anc ran the GUP.exe program directly, and Windows popped up its UAC nag window ('Open File - Security Warning). I unchecked “Always ask before opening this file” to clear it with the UAC, clicked ‘Run’, and it showed the standard Notepad++ Available Update message. I clicked ‘no’.

I then re-opened Notepad++, used the Plugins Admin to install a plugin, and it WORKED. Hopefully this will help others with the same problem, which was (for clarity) that selecting to install a plugin through the ‘Plugins Admin’, click ‘Yes’ to restart, and NPP closes but never re-opens on its own. When opened manually, nothing was installed.