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hyperlinks not working

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  • Last reply by calast1

calast1
calast1
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I am migrating to a new machine running Windows 11 (from old one with Windows 10) and have installed Thunderbird and Chrome as default apps. The only thing that is not working is clicking on a hyperlink in a message. I have read the article addressing this issue and tried all the suggested fixes. None work. When I click on a hyperlink in a message body, it just ignores me. If I right click on the link and choose open in browser from the pop-up, it ignores me. It does not matter what the type of link is. If it is a PDF, it does not open in the browser despite that being the default action for PDFs. More importantly, if it is just a link in a message (e.g., tracking info from Amazon), it does not do anything. I have looked at the setups on both machines and they seem identical. But what works under Windows 10 is not working under Windows 11. (As a computer scientist, I understand that there are a lot of variables in play here.)

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to get past this. Copy and paste is not the end of the world, but I would expect more consistent behavior.

I am migrating to a new machine running Windows 11 (from old one with Windows 10) and have installed Thunderbird and Chrome as default apps. The only thing that is not working is clicking on a hyperlink in a message. I have read the article addressing this issue and tried all the suggested fixes. None work. When I click on a hyperlink in a message body, it just ignores me. If I right click on the link and choose open in browser from the pop-up, it ignores me. It does not matter what the type of link is. If it is a PDF, it does not open in the browser despite that being the default action for PDFs. More importantly, if it is just a link in a message (e.g., tracking info from Amazon), it does not do anything. I have looked at the setups on both machines and they seem identical. But what works under Windows 10 is not working under Windows 11. (As a computer scientist, I understand that there are a lot of variables in play here.) I would appreciate any suggestions on how to get past this. Copy and paste is not the end of the world, but I would expect more consistent behavior.

Chosen solution

Thanks for your response. I pretty much tried everything in every tutorial I could find and nothing changed. But after a few days (and some restarts), things seem to be working properly at this point. I have been using Windows since 3.0 (32 years? really?) and nothing surprises me. I'll just close this one and chalk it up to randomness. Just happy it's working.

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Matt
Matt
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I would guess Microsoft have added even more hoops to jump through to choose not to use their web browser for links.

Have you tried following one of the many web tutorials on setting a default browser in Windows 11. Thunderbird basically tosses the URL to the operating system to action it. Hence all the Linux specific stuff in the support article.

Try copying a link in a browser and saving it to the windows 11 desktop. Does it open? I would guess it would not because the process to pass off the link would be the same as Thunderbird's. (unless you have a third party antivirus. They tend to do a lot of meddling in URL handling.

calast1
calast1 Question owner
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Chosen Solution

Thanks for your response. I pretty much tried everything in every tutorial I could find and nothing changed. But after a few days (and some restarts), things seem to be working properly at this point. I have been using Windows since 3.0 (32 years? really?) and nothing surprises me. I'll just close this one and chalk it up to randomness. Just happy it's working.