Can't insert Hyperlinks in Outlook after upgrading to Windows 10

Article
2016-07-19

Question

_{Tuesday, July 19, 2016 3:22 PM}

Our company require to insert Hyperlinks in Outlook instead of attaching files or pictures. Here are the instructioin:

Click New Email to open the email panel.
Open Windows Explorer and, highlight the file or folder.
Right click on it and move to the Outlook panel.
When release, you will have these options: Move Here, Copy Here and Create Hyperlink. Choose Create Hyperlink.
When an internal user open the email, he/she can click the link to access the file or folder.

It works fine until we upgraded some computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I have tried these sugegstions:

1. Add this value to the registry:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\opennew\command

Default value: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" %1

We will need to create both the opennew and command keys then add the url to the default value. (It's the same value found in the open\command key)

2. If the above solution won’t work then I’d like to suggest you try to fix this issue by the following article:
Hyperlinks are not working in Outlook
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/310049

3. Try to repair Officeapplication on affected client computers:
Repair an Office application
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Repair-an-Office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b

4. Try to open outlook in safe mode and see whether this issue will still persist.
Open Office apps in safe mode on a Windows PC
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-Office-apps-in-safe-mode-on-a-Windows-PC-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

5. Try to apply the latest updates to outlook clients then see this issue will be fixed
Description of Office 2010 Service Pack 2
https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/kb/2687455

6. Upgrade Office from 2010 to 2013.

None of them fixes the problem. Any sugegstiones?

Bob Lin, MCSE & CNE Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net How to Install and Configure Windows, VMware, Virtualization and Cisco on http://www.HowToNetworking.com

All replies (29)

_{Wednesday, July 20, 2016 7:48 AM}

Hi,

I can reproduce the issue here. The reason why this issue happens is that when the person receives that link and they click on it, its trying to go to their local disk and not the senders. You need to setup a file server and insert hyperlinks to files stored on the file server. People who need to open the file or folder from Outlook email need to have sufficient permission to navigate to the folder path the files are stored.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

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_{Wednesday, July 20, 2016 2:06 PM}

Thank you for the help. However, I am the member of the domain admins. When I creating the Hyperlinks on one of our network shared drive on my desktop. It works. When I try to create the same Hyperlinks on my Laptop, it doesn't work. In other words, it is not permissions issue.

_{Thursday, July 21, 2016 12:11 PM}

I believe I am having the same issue. To clarify though, are you having difficulty with step 3 of your process?

My problem is that after upgrading to Windows 10, users running Windows Pro and Outlook 2010 cannot insert hyperlinks using the above mentioned technique. At step 3, when you release the file while inside the body of the email, nothing happens (i.e., the options Move Here, Copy Here and Create Hyperlink do not appear).

_{Thursday, July 21, 2016 12:32 PM}

Yes, users running Windows Pro and Outlook 2010 cannot insert hyperlinks. What's your resolution?

_{Friday, July 22, 2016 1:57 AM}

Yes, users running Windows Pro and Outlook 2010 cannot insert hyperlinks. What's your resolution?

Bob Lin, MCSE & CNE Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net How to Install and Configure Windows, VMware, Virtualization and Cisco on http://www.HowToNetworking.com

Seems I've misunderstood something. Do you mean there are no Move Here, Copy Here and Create Hyperlink options when release the right-click? If this is the case, I cannot reproduce it here. What's the build number of your Windows 10? Please try to install all available updates to your Windows 10 and then check if this issue continues.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected].

_{Friday, July 22, 2016 3:10 PM}

We just upgarded these computer to Windows 10. The version is Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586]. The same version works on some computers but others.

_{Friday, July 22, 2016 4:01 PM}

I just want to confirm that this problem also exists in build 10586.494, which seems to be the latest build. The PC was upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 last week, with the right click drag menu working fine before the upgrade. Currently, when you release the right click while over the outlook window, nothing happens.

The operation was actually broken up until May of 2015 when a windows patch got it working again. But it seems like the upgrade to Windows 10 hasn't kept whatever was in that patch. Here's a link to a Microsoft Answers thread with the same issue. You can see that there are a bunch of posts after May 12th with things working again (though there are also some with Windows 10 that remained broken).

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-outlook/hyperlink-drag-and-drop/de610d6d-4e8b-4167-a155-14228a7922ee

_{Monday, July 25, 2016 1:56 AM}

Thank you for the update. Does this issue continue if we right click on a file and drag/drop to a windows folder using File Explorer?

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

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_{Monday, July 25, 2016 5:16 PM}

No, for me dragging from one window to another still opens the menu. But dragging to a Word 2010 document has the same issue, nothing happens when the right-click is released.

But I may have figured out one of the causes of the issue. I was working on another issue with the Windows 10 upgrade, how photo viewer behaves differently for local and shared drive folders. It turns out that the hyperlink issue only happens when right-click dragging from a shared drive to the email body. When dragging from a local drive, everything works fine. That might be why you can't reproduce the issue, if you're just trying to drag something from the desktop to outlook it works fine.

_{Monday, July 25, 2016 8:49 PM}

Me too, dragging from one window to another still opens the menu. But dragging to a Word 2010 document has the same issue, nothing happens when the right-click is released. However, no matter the file is located in local drive or network drive, I have the same problem.

_{Tuesday, July 26, 2016 7:38 AM}

Thank you for the update. Does this issue continue if we logon as administrator account?

In addition, I noticed that you have installed Office 2010 Service Pack 2, it's also recommended to install all available updates to your Office 2010 and then check if this issue continues. There used to have a similar issue and users were able to fix this by installing some Office updates.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected].

_{Tuesday, July 26, 2016 12:33 PM}

Everything seems to be up to date with my office install, the build number is 14.0.7166.5000. Automatic updates are on for MS products, so everything should be kept up to date.

That being said, I found what may be the culprit. It turns out that the shared drive itself isn't the issue, it's actually the drive mapping. We have a single server here, but have mapped drives to different folders on the server. If I open a folder from the mapped drive, the right-click drag menu doesn't work in office products. However if I open the network place for the server, then navigate to the folder from there, things work again. So I at least have a work around, even if it's an inconvenient one. It's only when going from the mapped drive that I run into issues.

Going by Chicagotech's last comment about the file location not affecting whether it works or not, I'm starting to think the issues we're having might not be the same. I really hope I haven't hijacked the thread with a similar but different bug. If I have, sorry!

_{Wednesday, July 27, 2016 7:15 PM}

In our case, no matter the file is in local drive or network. All have the same issue.

_{Thursday, July 28, 2016 1:51 AM}

Hi Bob,

Please try performing the following steps on one problematic computer and then check if this issue continues:

1. Right click on the Start button of Windows and choose: Command Prompt (Admin).

2. Type: sfc /scannowand press Enter.

3. Wait until the process completes.

4. Restart your computer and check if this issue continues.

In addition, would you please try downgrade a computer to Windows 7 to see the result, so that we can determine if the issue is related to Windows 10 or Microsoft Office?

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected].

_{Monday, August 1, 2016 1:46 AM}

Just wanted to say hi and check if there is anything that I can do for you on this problem. If so, please do not hesitate to let me know and I will be happy to help.

Best Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please mark the reply as an answer if you find it is helpful.

If you have feedback for TechNet Support, contact [email protected].

_{Tuesday, August 2, 2016 8:19 PM}

I may have been hasty with my earlier comment. I wasn't consistent with my tests, which messed up the results. Here's what's currently happening:

Rightclick dragging a file from either a local and shared drive does not work. When the right click is released over the Outlook or Word window, nothing happens.
Rightclick dragging a folder from either a local and shared drive does work! The menu pops up like normal and I can create the hyperlink.

What happened when I tested earlier was that I just went to the server root and dragged a folder from there, which worked fine. Same with the local test, another folder. But when I tested the mapped drive, I was dragging an excel file, which didn't work. I didn't think that folders and files would behave different*,* my mistake.

Not sure about chicagotech, but I ran the filescan just in case. It did come back with some file ownership issues (probably from the upgrade), but did not fix the problem. Not really in a position to try a rollback to Windows 7, we don't have a free PC to test that on right now.

Any other advice?

_{Tuesday, August 2, 2016 9:06 PM}

Hi Steve，

These are what I did:

1. Installed all updates for office 2010 and Windows 10.

2. Upgraded Office 2010 to 2013.

3. Login domain admin and login different users.

4. Run sfc /scanow.

_{Wednesday, August 3, 2016 5:55 AM}

Thank you for the update. I've built more testing environments and tried to reproduce this issue, and here are the result:

Windows 7 + Office 2010      work
Windows 10 + Office 2013    work
Windows 8.1 + Office 2010   doesn't work
Windows 8.1 + Office 2013   work
Windows 10 + Office 2010    doesn't work
Windows 10 + Office 2016    work

According to the testing results, this issue happens with Office 2010 installed on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. Based on my deep research, some other users had a similar issue when using Office 2013 and Office 2016 on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10, but this issue has been fixed for Office 2013 and Office 2016 by some updates. I noted that this issue continued when you upgraded to Office 2013, I'd like to know if you have the latest version of Office 2013 installed when testing?

In addition, as a workaround, we may try:

1. Shift + right click on the file you want to create a hyperlink for.

2. Choose "Copy as Path"

3. Go to Outlook message, click Insert > Hyperlink

4. Paste it to the Address field.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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_{Thursday, August 4, 2016 9:11 PM}

Hi Steve,

Thank you for the testing. Here are my feedback.

1. If the office 2013 install on a new windows 10, it works.

2. If the Offiec was working on Windows 7 but doesn't work even we upgarded office to 2013 after upgrading to windows 10, it could be the office update issue. In our case, the upgraded Office 2013 doesn't have option to instal the office update shown as this screen.

We don't setup the policy to block the Office update. The same user login different computer can see the Office update options. Also manual update gets this message:

Note: the Office 2013 is 32 bit. What could be the problem with the Office update?

_{Thursday, August 4, 2016 11:46 PM}

I believe my results are consistent with Steve Fan's results. I upgraded 5 computers from Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro. Some of the computers have Office 2010 installed and others have Office 2013 installed.

The hyperlink feature works fine for those computers that have Office 2013 (32-bit). For those computers that have Office 2010, the hyperlink feature does not work.

Below is the build information for the computers where the hyperlink feature is not working:

Windows 10 Pro (Version 1511) - Build 10586.494

Office 2010 (32-bit) - Version 14.0.7166.5000

_{Monday, August 8, 2016 1:28 AM}

Hi,

I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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_{Tuesday, August 9, 2016 4:42 AM | 1 vote}

Hi,

Based on my deep research, this is actually a known issue to some versions of Office since Windows 8.1. The primary cause of this issue could be: since Windows 8.1, Windows changed the format of the clipboard for right mouse button drag operation and some Office versions doesn't support this.

We have reported this issue to our product team. Sorry we cannot provide a timeframe about when the issue can be fixed now. We will continue tracking on the issue and will inform you once it is fixed. Currently, please keep your Office program up-to-date and try using the workaround I provided before.

Thanks for your understanding and support.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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_{Tuesday, August 9, 2016 2:51 PM}

Steve,

Thank you for the detail infirmation. I posted another questin regarding the Office 2013 update. Here is answer: "For MSI version of Office products, by default, there is no update options on the Account page. It retrieves updates via Windows Update, not via the CDN (content delivery network)".

I have checked the version of our Office 2013, it has the letast update installed.

_{Tuesday, August 9, 2016 8:44 PM}

Steve,

Thanks for all of your help with this, too bad it wasn't an easy fix. The workaround is alright for now, though it's a little frustrating that the issue was fixed on Windows 7. At least I had a little over a year of things working smoothly before it broke again!

_{Wednesday, August 10, 2016 1:40 AM}

Thank you guys. The product team is investigating on this issue, as it is also related to the Windows behavior, it may take some time to fix this from Office side.

Thank you again for your understanding and patience.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as an answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

_{Thursday, August 24, 2017 3:09 PM}

Hi,

Is there any news on the fix for this please? One year on from the last post and I am still seeing this issue after we have updated our works system to Windows 10 recently.

I use this function all the time and it is really annoying, thanks.

_{Saturday, January 20, 2018 12:10 AM}

Is there any update on this is there a fix.

Right click drag drop does nothing no context menu Move Here, Copy Here, Create Hyperlink Here and cancel

Interestingly you get the plus sign during the drag but then nothing when you go to drop into Word document or Outlook Email. Have no issues on our Windows 7 devices.

OS: Windows 10 Enterprise x64
OS Version: 10.0 (14393)
Image version: 6.1607.0

Office 2010 Pro Plus

Version 14.0.7192.5000(32bt)

_{Wednesday, February 7, 2018 11:15 PM}

I was just having the same problem and couldn't understand why right clicking and paste or ctrl v wouldn't work, so I saved the draft email, closed the email app and reopened i, tried the same commands and straight away it pasted it in with ctrl v...weird bug, could someone at Microsoft get this sorted out please? The code needs a slight edit that's all, but it seems to go sleep and cuts out any hyperlinks or external code...

Anyway, that's my temporary fix ;)

_{Thursday, February 13, 2020 3:35 PM}

it's 2020 ang it seems it's the same problem.

Working on Windows 7 but stopped working after the upgrade to Windows 10

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Can't insert Hyperlinks in Outlook after upgrading to Windows 10

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