Did your URLs suddenly stop being clickable too, after a Windows Security Update?

xmatic

Notepad++ v8.4.7 , in Portable model, on Windows 10 here.

After a recent Windows Security Update, I noticed that any URL links in my text files are no longer clickable. That is, if I click on them or double-click on them, nothing happens. Though my cursor continues to turn into a hand when I hover on them.

(Sidenote: This is a personal laptop. However, I am also logged into my Microsoft Office Applications, OneDrive, and Outlook email using my work account with my employer. I believe that for security reasons, my employer has a “group policy” that disables opening URL links from unapproved apps. I’m wondering whether somehow that “group policy” got applied in my personal laptop because I was logged in to my Office, OneDrive, and Outlook email accounts using my account with my employer.)

I’ve uninstalled all recent Windows Security Updates that I was able to, but a couple of recent ones, Windows won’t let me uninstall.

Your thoughts on how to try to resolve?

Thanks in advance.

PeterJones

@xmatic ,

As you might infer from the resounding silence, it appears that none of the regulars here has had the same problem.

My guess is that yes, somehow the group policy “leaked” onto your personal computer, because I’ve never seen such a thing happen. You might ask the Search Engine That Knows All to see if you can look at or edit the group policy on your personal laptop to try to fix it… but I doubt any of the regulars here have enough I.T. skills to help, and this isn’t a generic IT Help Site, so if Search Engine Supreme isn’t sufficient, finding a help site made up of super users of their computers might be more appropriate.

As a workaround inside Notepad++: if I select a URL in Notepad++ (instead of double-clicking), then do the Notepad++ Run menu’s Run… command, and use $(CURRENT_WORD) as the command to run, it will launch that URL in my default browser. But that might still trigger the Group Policy. If it does, see if you could instead run c:\path\to\browser.exe $(CURRENT_WORD) or maybe cmd.exe /c $(CURRENT_WORD) or cmd.exe /c c:\path\to\browser.exe $(CURRENT_WORD) … one of those might get around the GP, but no guarantees. (If MS Edge is your browser, it doesn’t have an easy .exe path, so try cmd /c start microsoft-edge:$(CURRENT_WORD) or cmd /c start msedge $(CURRENT_WORD) , depending on what OS Update you are on and what version of Edge you have.) If you find one that works, then you can Save that Run… command so it stays in the Run menu and you can assign a shortcut. It would require always selecting the URL first, but until you can find a Windows OS fix, it might get around the problem on your personal laptop. Good luck.

xmatic

@PeterJones – Thank you for your detailed and empathetic suggestions. Will give them a try and see. Thanks.

Kent Holt

Yes, have no URL access frome Notepad++. This work around is effective and thanks for that. Same OS situation and after some work with firewall settings, still nothing from the text window click and go URLs.

xmatic

@xmatic SOLVED: it turned out to be an issue with the “default browser”. I have Google Chrome Portable (from portableapps.com ). Everything used to work fine, and then I think I updated this portable version of Google Chrome in a wrong way*, and after that things stopped working (and I wrongly assumed that it was something to do with “group policy” etc.). The solution was to make Microsoft Edge the default browser. The links NPP immediately started working (and opening to Microsoft Edge). And after a restart I opened Google Chrome Portable, received a prompt to set it as the default browser, and followed the steps to set it like so. And after this the links inside NPP started opening (in Google Chrome Portable) without a problem.

*the correct way to update Google Chrome Portable is to download the current zip from portableapps.com and then extract the contents to the current GoogleChromePortable folder. What I did instead was to extract it to its own folder (let’s call it “x”). Then delete the contents of the GoogleChromePortable folder, and then cut the contents of “x” and pasted them into the GoogleChromePortable folder.