Hyperlinks not working in Word (Office 2016, Windows 10)

Anonymous
2022-05-05T17:04:47+00:00

I have a vast number of Word documents that include links to jpg images in nearby folders.

When you click on it, normally (until today) the image opens up in Photoshop Elements 14, and I can edit and save it etc.

Today however when I click on any of these links I get a box asking me to look for an app in the Microsoft Store: "you'll need a new app to open this about link". I don’t want to go there as I already own Photoshop and if I click on Store it doesn’t seem to have a route back to my own programme files.

In Windows Explorer I can see that jpg files default open with Photoshop, as they always have done. This only seems to apply to hyperlinks. It continues to work for .tiff files, but not for .jpg or .jpeg files.

On Settings/App/Default apps, Photoshop is correctly set as the default software for images

Photoshop Elements Update says it is fully up to date. In settings/App etc. there is no Modify button, just uninstall which I don’t want to risk. I’ve tried to Repair Office which made no difference.

Allori.jpg

AlloriT.tif

[Moderator note: thread updated with operating system (Windows 10)]

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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Anonymous
2022-11-03T10:27:48+00:00

I can now confirm that the fix has been done, and having reenabled auto updates on Office the hylerlinks are now working correctly.

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Anonymous
2022-05-18T15:31:27+00:00

Hi Neil, Luke here. I tested several recent Office update releases and I think I isolated the culprit that broke your Word doc links.

For the April 20 Version 2203 (Build 15028.20228), the test docs with JPG and PNG links work as expected when I click on the hyperlink. Note the first time I tried the JPG link, there appeared a security warning about dangerous file formats which you can ignore. Standard Microsoft procedure for JPGs.

For the subsequent release of April 26 Version 2204 (Build 15128.20178), the test docs with JPG and PNG links did not work and produced this error message when I click on the hyperlink: "No Program is registered to open this file." I checked my file associations in Windows settings and confirmed this is incorrect; my JPG and PNG file associations are still the same as ever.

To rollback to the last working version, I modified LiranLustig's suggestion with the version number. You can use this command line (following LiranLustig's instructions):

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\ClickToRun\officec2rclient.exe" /update user updatetoversion=16.0.15028.20228

After a successful install is achieved, open Word again, go to File\Account, and make sure to Disable Updates so you don't receive the rogue update. No telling how long the wait for an update with the bug fix but there's little downside to sticking with the April 20 Version for a while.

Note that I have tested this only on Windows 11 and Office 365. It is expected to work on Windows 10 and Office 2016 but no guarantees. As LiranLustig notes, this is not a system restore so it is relatively low impact and should not affect other operations or programs.

So to recap, it appears the April 26 Version 2204 (Build 15128.20178) update introduced this bug.

Cheers,

Luke

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-07-23T07:58:52+00:00

    This is so annoying. I have an external hard drive with documents on it and hyperlinks which are stored in a directory titled clips. All of a sudden the hyperlinks don't work. A few months ago I also noticed that if I inserted a picture in a document, it looked ok in print preview, but came out cropped, not resized. This is slowly becoming unusable

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-07-09T09:37:36+00:00

    If you get reports from clients who have had this problem and find it disappears on future updates I will recontact Microsoft to see if the development department then think they have dealt with it. as I've said before it is hugely disappointing they won't take the initiative to inform us when they have done so. I am assured they are still working on it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-07-09T07:49:18+00:00

    Perhaps they rolled me back to an earlier version. It will still affect my clients though.

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