Windows Live Mail can not copy hyperlinks from one e-mail to another.

“While I was on Windows 8.0, copy and paste of hyperlinks worked fine.  Following auto-update to Win 8.1, it no longer worked.”

I think there may be a distinction between the term of art “Windows 8" and Windows Explorer 8.  But thank you seem to confirmed what have written to jFiredog who claims this problem only arise with IE 11.  Like you I have been troubled by this issue since I installed WLM in 2010 at which time I had IE 8.  Yes, you are correct, it's been here for years and long before IE 11.  

The obvious work around no one has realized and without the risk of messing up your registry is to simply to compose your document in Word or Word Perfect and save it as an html.  Then retrieve that html document in your browser (I use Firefox but it probably doesn't matter).  From there you can copy and paste it into your WLM email.  You will see the hyperlink text. Send that email to yourself.  The links will be visible and they will function.  Furthermore it works in the reverse: you can copy and paste those lines into another email and they will be fine.

So it's simple: Hyperlinked text can only be pasted into a WLM email after it is first saved in html format.  Hyperlinked text in a Word or WPD document works fine and that is easily copied and pasted into any Word or WPD document no problem but that is not technically html until you save is as such and WLM (duh) will not accept it in any other format.  So the rule seems to be that in WLM you can create html hyperlinks but you can not paste them in (even within the same email).  Rule: simple compose on Word or WP and save that document as htlm.  That html saved text should, when retrieved in your browser, should copy and paste just fine into the WLM email.

While I was on Windows 8.0, copy and paste of hyperlinks worked fine.  Following auto-update to Win 8.1, it no longer worked ... The problem is a year old. 

Windows 8 came with Internet Explorer 10. Windows 8.1 comes with Internet Explorer 11.

There has been one bugfix for Windows Live Mail since October 2010. I don't expect any more, I don't believe that anyone is working on bugfixes, and if this is indeed the case, I think it's shabby that support agents try to make us believe that it isn't.

Not sure about the problem going back to IE8.  While I was on Windows 8.0, copy and paste of hyperlinks worked fine.  Following auto-update to Win 8.1, it no longer worked.  I don't have your technical knowledge - I just report what happened.  The problem is a year old.  Microsoft said on this thread several months ago that the problem had been recognised and that their engineers were working on it - but nothing happens.  Its still broke!

Chris: please read further here for the 'fix' suggested is based on a false premise-- that IE 11 causes the problem. All this is what I have encountered since 2010 and when I had IE 8.

Once again you make false assumptions.  What part of “can not copy and paste hyperlinks into email” is not clear?  The reverse is also true btw and I explained that too.  

“I took this to mean that when you pasted a hyperlink from a Windows Live Mail message into another one, the link wouldn't work.”

No, that is not what I meant or wrote. Please read more carefully for there is nothing there to work.  The hyperlink is gone, it does not paste.   It does not matter whether I paste hyperlink text from a Windows Live Mail message into another one, whether is paste it into that same email, whether I paste it in from a Word or Word Perfect document, or whether I copy if from and email into a Word or Perfect document.

Nor did I say that it merely “will not work” for there is nothing there towork.  It's not as if I paste a hyperlink that has been rendered inactive (though present) but that the hyperlink itself is not there.  All that gets pasted in is raw text with no hyperlinks and no codes – the hyperlinks are gone.  No codes imbedded in that text copy and paste into or from an email.  

For example, in your email reply sent to me from Microsoft the first lines state,

    “Hello JohnM333,

    Your question on Microsoft Community has received a reply from ¡Firedog.

    Title: Can not copy past hyperlinks into email

The p[phrases  “Microsoft Community” and “Can not copy past hyperlinks into email” both contain imbedded hyperlinks.  But if I copy those phrases and paste them into a different email, or into a reply, or into a Word Perfect document, only the text will paste.  It's not that the links paste but “will not work” (hyperlinks rendered inactive) but there is no hyperlink there any more — only the text will paste.  It does not matter from or to where to what or visa versa. I can create text with a hyperlink in an email but I can not copy and paste that into the same email below it, nor will it paste into a different email, nor into a Word Perfect document, nor even from a Word Perfect document.  Likewise, the same thing happens when I copy hyperlink text from a Word Perfect document into a WLM email.

It does not matter if its from a WLM email and into the same one or another one, it does not matter if its from a WLM email into a Word Perfect document and into a WLM email.

I can copy and paste hyperlinked text from a WPD into that same WPD or into another WPD and all is fine.  But the imbedded hyperlinks disappear only when I paste them into a WLM email.  WLM is the only glitch in either direction.

However, if I save that WP document as an HTML and then copy and paste that into an email then the hyperlink is there and active.  Then if I copy and paste that from that email and back into that email it's there and it works.  But that is only because it was originally pasted in from a document already saved as an HTML.  So, only once a document is saved in HTML format will the text with hyperlinks paste into an email AND I can copy and paste that same text into a reply email.  This is absolutely maddening and WLM is the only place I have ever encountered it.

The problem is an HTML issue.  If I have a WPD (or Word document) with hyperlinks I can copy and paste that text with hyperlinks into the same or any other WP or Word document with no problem and without having to save that WPD as an HTML format.  No problem anywhere – except with WLM.

Th  problem is almost accurately stated in your own past post “A hyperlink copied from another mail message or from a Word document is not active when pasted into a new mail message.” (The same is true from an email and into a WPD.)  Your statement is inaccurate because it's not that we SEE a hyperlink that is "inactive" but that there is no hyperlink at all -- all there is is text and there is no 'inactive' hyperlink to be made active... it's just not there.

And please note that the post you refer does not provide a solution but merely speculates on the cause which, yet again, is based on a false  assumption (installing IE 11). You simply “speculate” that “this conversion (HTML to CSS) is carried out by one or other of the Internet Explorer libraries” and you further “speculate” the blame lies in the installation of Internet Explorer 11.  But, again, this speculation is just one more false assumption for IE 11 has nothing to do with it since I have had this same problem since the very first day I installed WLM and when I still had IE 8.  So, once again, it's speculation based false assumptions and false premises.  In any context, speculation based on false assumptions and providing no tested solution is not very helpful.  

Deal with the facts as they are and not as you assume.  A false premise almost always leads to a false conclusion.   This is not a problem that first arose with IE 11.  It's always been the case as far back as 2010 and with IE 8.  It has never, ever, been any other way whether you are talking about IE 8 or 11.  

But, ironically, this all tells on Microsoft for in that post you wrote, “The fact remains that Windows Live Mail - on which development stopped in 2010 - uses IE8 standards by default.” Again the false assumption that IE 11 causes the problem for this is the same issue I have always encountered even when I had IE 8 back in 2010 so, ergo, the fault can not lie in IE 11 (just your assumption) since it already existed with IE 8. “The fact remains that Windows Live Mail” displayed this same infuriating bug from day one with IE 8 and Microsoft just stopped development. I can only 'speculate,' that WLM proved to be so problematic with regard to common, everyday, basic HTML functions we all use that Microsoft abandoned development and left is in a big mess.

I already have a career. I just want to compose email with hyperlinks the same way I do other documents and I do not want to make a career out of it.  It is precisely problems like these that make consumers so reluctant to use a new product where even the entity that created it later abandons it because the simplest functions are botched.

So, final question and comment:  Do not ever (as has been done here) instruct end-users to mess with their registry (lead them down a garden path) and then abandon them on a dead end street. First, if the tinkering with the registry does not solve this problem how do we get back to the way we were? Never ever take is to a place we can not get back from.  no mater were you take us make sure we can get back.

Second, even if it does work, how do we know (trust) that the fix you suggest does not create more problems than it solves and really make our lives miserable? Have you confirmed that altering the registry not only fixes this problem but has no adverse effect on any other program that uses IE 11 standards?