No regression – check your settings here:

Themes are only installed to %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes of the user who installed N++. Other users never get these (no themes at all in my case, see earlier post).
From my point of view this is a concept error. Default themes should be in %ProgramFiles%\Notepad++\themes and %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes supersede these. I hope this would also fit the “settings in the cloud” approach.

This issue will be fixed in the next release:
https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/commit/3347044595cae60c658ed39e4f2e1ea913eb66e2

The old version does everything I really NEED it to do

Then why come here to comment on it? Live on in your happy obsolescence. :-)

Seriously, though, aren’t there reasonable ways to get any icons you want using the OS instead of Notepad++ 's control?
If that aspect of the discussion is to be continued, respectfully request that you open a new discussion thread, as this one is sort of reserved for real 8.1 problems.

And still no way to choose the obsolete icon. The app and file type icon is the only reason I’m sticking with 6.9.2.

And the award-winner for the dumbest reason ever to use an ancient version of a software program goes to…YOU.
Sorry, but that is really, really, really dumb.

What your link points to isn’t what @Raheesh-Ramsy is asking about.

@Raheesh-Ramsy said:

how can we insert a image in notepad++???

Short answer: You can’t. Notepad++ doesn’t handle images, only text.

BOTH: This thread is for discussion of problems with the 8.1 release of Notepad++. Please don’t ask questions or make comments unrelated to that in this thread – create a new discussion thread in that case.

I am NP++ (Minimal Portable version) user since 2015, and use it as a simple text editor (instead of Windows Notepad).
Everything was OK till version 8 and later!

Why the latest version has lag on start! When I click on NP++ icon it starts too late (about 2 to 3 seconds), previous versions have no lag, were just like thunder! (I am on Windows 10 20H2 x64, SSD Hard, as always NP++ Minimal Portable latest version).

Let’s hope the N++ team can fix this in v8.2.

Since it’s never worked that way in the past, that is a feature request, rather than a regression in v8.1. Don does check this thread for regressions, but to make sure they are noticed and tracked, feature requests should go in the official issues site on GitHub, as described in our FAQ

So 2 Issues with Themes and Dark Mode:

• Installer does not put default themes in %ProgramFiles%\Notepad++\themes
• Setting “Dark Mode > Enable dark mode” expects themes in %APPDATA% and if missing does not fall back to %ProgramFiles%.
  Workaround: Select Dark Mode theme manually

I think we figured out the actual cause and related issues. Thanks to all.
Let’s hope the N++ team can fix this in v8.2.

Issues with Dark Mode / Themes
Themes are only installed to %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes of the user who installed N++. Other users never get these (no themes at all in my case, see earlier post).

From my point of view this is a concept error. Default themes should be in %ProgramFiles%\Notepad++\themes and %APPDATA%\Notepad++\themes supersede these. I hope this would also fit the “settings in the cloud” approach.
Copying files around from user to user is neither convenient nor fitting well to user segregation (admin to install program, normal users to work with program).

At any rate, I was able to fix it by copying %AppData%\Notepad++\themes\DarkModeDefault.xml from my primary user account (the one I installed NPP with) to the same location on my secondary account.

Note that NPP can’t be running when you do this, or it will overwrite that file on application exit with the “broken” settings. After copying the primary user’s file and then launching NPP and selecting dark mode in settings it worked for me on the secondary account. In fact, for some reason I think I had do the “close app and then copy file” twice after first running NPP to verify the error, although that may have just been because I inadvertently did the first copy while NPP was still running.

Perhaps the default creation/copying of the DarkModeDefault.xml file (if it doesn’t already exist) is incorrect?

Nothing critical, but would be nice to have that fixed as well.

For editor theme I use Dracula (if anyone wonders):

• https://draculatheme.com/notepad-plus-plus
• https://github.com/dracula/notepad-plus-plus

Oh, some feature requests while we’re at it:

• Add ability to have .md as default file extension. I write 99% markdown. (Preferences -> New Document -> Default language.
  • Please sort the list alphabetically too.
    
• Add markdom as a “Language” in “Style Configurator”. And sort that list of “Languages” alphabetically as well.

#1 Dark Mode
I never changed anything in the Style Configurator since my clean install in February 2021 (as I far as I can remember).
For dark mode I just enabled it in the Settings (not Style Configurator).
On the admin account it switched the theme to “DarkModeDefault” as mentioned by Alan-Kilborn.
On my normal user there are no themes available at all, so I currently assume it is a code or installer issue. Maybe this was even introduced in an earlier release, but not recognized by me as I never changed theme stuff. The other theme issues mentioned by Alan-Kilborn could be related to this too.
Anything else I should check out for Npp team?

#2 Debug info
Maybe the debug info code is just not adapted to newer versions of Windows 10 yet.
Anything else I should check out for Npp team (e.g. reg file)?

I think you want the “DarkModeDefault” theme selected in Style Configurator. Or maybe you tried that and it doesn’t “stick” somehow?

Correction of Npp’s debug info: It is version 21H1, not 2009.

Is this implying that there is a bug in how N++ reports this data?

Hmm, you might want to report a bug about your status bar as well.
The horizontal spacing of the fields looks wacky.
Just sayin.

Debug Info:
Notepad++ v8.1 (64-bit)
Build time : Jun 17 2021 - 01:56:07
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Command Line :
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
Cloud Config : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Pro (64-bit)
OS Version : 2009
OS Build : 19043.1055
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : ComparePlugin.dll JSMinNPP.dll MarkdownViewerPlusPlus.dll mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll NppExport.dll XMLTools.dll

Correction of Npp’s debug info: It is version 21H1, not 2009. Build number is correct.