Hyperlinks in Excel and Word stopped working.

Question

Hyperlinks in Excel and Word stopped working.

Bernard Kripkee 0

Hyperlinks stopped working in both Excel and Word. Both new hyperlinks and old ones that used to work are no longer effective. Nothing happens when I click a hyperlink. There is no error message. However, hyperlinks do work in the Word Perfect word processor, so the problem is not a general windows problem and Windows 11 can find the appropriate app to open the link. The linkage addresses that fail in Excel and Word do work when copied into File Explorer, so the addresses are correct. These are hyperlinks to documents in my file system, including a hyperlink to a .txt file on my main drive. It appears that this is some problem peculiar to Microsoft 365.

Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T18:52:59.4966667+00:00

It is a broader issue. All hyperlinks, both old and new, stopped working in multiple documents. Online Repair failed to resolve the issue. Office is fully updated.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T18:56:36.59+00:00

I have already tried all the posted remedies. None of them worked.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T20:17:22.24+00:00

I opened my Excel spreadsheet in Apache Open Office. The same hyperlinks that do not work in Excel do work in the Open Office version.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-24T20:21:22.7366667+00:00

I have tried quite a few suggested registry changes suggested by Anthropic's Claude and by Google's Gemini. None of them worked. I just tried replacing my HKEY_CURRENT_USER with the corresponding key from my wife's registry. That did work. With her HKEY_CURRENT_USER in place of mine, hyperlinks to files did work. When I restored my own HKEY_CURRENT_USER, hyperlinks to files stopped working again. I think this experiment shows that there is indeed some problem in my HKEY_CURRENT_USER, but I still don't know what it is. I've tried comparing my wife's HKEY_CURRENT_USER and mine side-by-side, but they are too large for that to be practical.

Answer recommended by moderator

Bernard Kripkee 0

Following a suggestion from Google Gemini, I narrowed down the problem to the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common. If I delete this key or replace it with the corresponding key from my wife's registry, hyperlinks work. However, I have not succeeded in narrowing the problem further. If I delete each of the sub-keys one by one, that does not fix the problem. If I delete the Common key and then replace the subkeys one by one, that does not make the problem recur. I guess that my registry is corrupted somehow so that deleting a key produces a different results from deleting each of its subkeys one by one.

Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-26T06:16:59.6833333+00:00

Hi,

Glad to hear that your issue has been resolved.

Have a nice day!
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-26T16:54:56.09+00:00

Thanks, Kai-H, for your suggestions. I now consider the problem resolved, although I don't understand which part of the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common was causing the trouble, nor do I understand why I can't effect a resolution by deleting subkeys one at a time, or deleting the whole key and restoring subkeys one at a time.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-27T06:20:18.18+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

What probably happened is that the problem was not one single bad subkey, but an inconsistent combination of settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common. Office often rebuilds that branch on startup using its own defaults plus machine-level settings, so deleting the whole key lets it recreate a clean, internally consistent state. If you delete and restore subkeys one at a time, you can easily miss the exact bad combination, restore values in the wrong order, or reintroduce stale cached settings that only make sense together. So unfortunately this kind of fix often works as an “all at once reset,” but not as a neat one-key-at-a-time diagnosis.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T14:23:16.19+00:00

Thanks, Kai-H, for your explanation. It does help me understand what happened. As far as I can tell, Excel and my other Office apps are now working as they should.

The key to finding a solution was your suggestion that I try logging on to my system as a different user. That revealed that hyperlinks were working correctly with my wife's registry entries. The suggestion from Gemini that led me to a solution was that I isolate the problem by separately replacing each of the following keys with the corresponding keys from my wife's registry and test whether the replacement resolved the problem. The suggested keys to replace were: HKCU\Software\Classes, HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office, and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. The replacement of HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office was the one that worked. I then repeated the procedure on subkeys until I found the one that worked.
Mitchell Cocking 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T19:37:42.27+00:00

Hi Bernard. I am having this exact issue. How did you fix it exactly? Did you delete everything in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common? how did you replace these?
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T20:08:10.1666667+00:00

Hi Mitchell. I found two ways to restore correct hyperlink behavior:

(1) I could restore correct hyperlink behavior by deleting the key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common.

(2) When I logged on to my PC as my wife, I observed correct hyperlink behavior using her registry. I could restore correct hyperlink behavior for my own logon by replacing my HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common with the corresponding key from my wife's registry. To do this, I exported her HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common and saved it where I could access it with my own logon. I deleted HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common from my own registry. Then I imported the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common I had saved from my wife's registry.

If I understand Kai-H's suggestion correctly, you could accomplish this by creating a new user. If hyperlinks work correctly for the new user, you could export the new user's key and use it to replace your own.
Mitchell Cocking 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T21:42:06.7433333+00:00

OK I deleted the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common and that has also resolved the issue for me. Thank you so much for posting your solution on here. This was driving me nuts.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-28T06:21:58.8666667+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

I'm always happy to help!

2 additional answers

Your answer

Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T18:52:59.4966667+00:00

It is a broader issue. All hyperlinks, both old and new, stopped working in multiple documents. Online Repair failed to resolve the issue. Office is fully updated.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T18:56:36.59+00:00

I have already tried all the posted remedies. None of them worked.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-19T20:17:22.24+00:00

I opened my Excel spreadsheet in Apache Open Office. The same hyperlinks that do not work in Excel do work in the Open Office version.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-24T20:21:22.7366667+00:00

I have tried quite a few suggested registry changes suggested by Anthropic's Claude and by Google's Gemini. None of them worked. I just tried replacing my HKEY_CURRENT_USER with the corresponding key from my wife's registry. That did work. With her HKEY_CURRENT_USER in place of mine, hyperlinks to files did work. When I restored my own HKEY_CURRENT_USER, hyperlinks to files stopped working again. I think this experiment shows that there is indeed some problem in my HKEY_CURRENT_USER, but I still don't know what it is. I've tried comparing my wife's HKEY_CURRENT_USER and mine side-by-side, but they are too large for that to be practical.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-26T06:16:59.6833333+00:00

Hi,

Glad to hear that your issue has been resolved.

Have a nice day!
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-26T16:54:56.09+00:00

Thanks, Kai-H, for your suggestions. I now consider the problem resolved, although I don't understand which part of the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common was causing the trouble, nor do I understand why I can't effect a resolution by deleting subkeys one at a time, or deleting the whole key and restoring subkeys one at a time.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-27T06:20:18.18+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

What probably happened is that the problem was not one single bad subkey, but an inconsistent combination of settings under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common. Office often rebuilds that branch on startup using its own defaults plus machine-level settings, so deleting the whole key lets it recreate a clean, internally consistent state. If you delete and restore subkeys one at a time, you can easily miss the exact bad combination, restore values in the wrong order, or reintroduce stale cached settings that only make sense together. So unfortunately this kind of fix often works as an “all at once reset,” but not as a neat one-key-at-a-time diagnosis.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T14:23:16.19+00:00

Thanks, Kai-H, for your explanation. It does help me understand what happened. As far as I can tell, Excel and my other Office apps are now working as they should.

The key to finding a solution was your suggestion that I try logging on to my system as a different user. That revealed that hyperlinks were working correctly with my wife's registry entries. The suggestion from Gemini that led me to a solution was that I isolate the problem by separately replacing each of the following keys with the corresponding keys from my wife's registry and test whether the replacement resolved the problem. The suggested keys to replace were: HKCU\Software\Classes, HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office, and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer. The replacement of HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office was the one that worked. I then repeated the procedure on subkeys until I found the one that worked.
Mitchell Cocking 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T19:37:42.27+00:00

Hi Bernard. I am having this exact issue. How did you fix it exactly? Did you delete everything in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common? how did you replace these?
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T20:08:10.1666667+00:00

Hi Mitchell. I found two ways to restore correct hyperlink behavior:

(1) I could restore correct hyperlink behavior by deleting the key HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common.

(2) When I logged on to my PC as my wife, I observed correct hyperlink behavior using her registry. I could restore correct hyperlink behavior for my own logon by replacing my HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common with the corresponding key from my wife's registry. To do this, I exported her HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common and saved it where I could access it with my own logon. I deleted HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common from my own registry. Then I imported the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common I had saved from my wife's registry.

If I understand Kai-H's suggestion correctly, you could accomplish this by creating a new user. If hyperlinks work correctly for the new user, you could export the new user's key and use it to replace your own.
Mitchell Cocking 0 Reputation points

2026-04-27T21:42:06.7433333+00:00

OK I deleted the HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common and that has also resolved the issue for me. Thank you so much for posting your solution on here. This was driving me nuts.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-28T06:21:58.8666667+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

I'm always happy to help!

Answer 1

Kai-H 19,570 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

This looks more like Office itself is failing to hand the link off, not that the hyperlinks are wrong. Since it’s happening in both Word and Excel, I’d focus on Office startup/add-ins and Excel’s trust settings.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Start Word and Excel in Safe Mode first, using winword /safe and excel /safe. Safe Mode is meant to help spot add-ins, extensions, or corrupted settings, and you can also check File > Options > Add-ins > Disabled Items while you’re there.

If links work there, disable all COM add-ins and bring them back one at a time. You should check the XLSTART and alternate startup folders, because files loaded there can interfere with normal behavior.

In Excel, go to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > External Content and review Workbook Links and Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). These settings control whether linked content can launch, and DDE server launch is normally left off.

If Safe Mode makes no difference, I’d skip another repair and do a full Office uninstall with Microsoft’s uninstall troubleshooter, then reinstall only one Office version. Multiple Office versions on the same PC can also cause problems.

Thank you for your patience in reading, I hope this information has been helpful to you.

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Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-20T14:47:28.7866667+00:00

Thank you, Kai-H for your suggestions. Unfortunately, they did not resolve the problem. Hyperlinks did not work in Excel Safe Mode. Changing Trust Center settings to enable DDE server launch didn't help. I did a complete uninstall/reinstall of Microsoft Office. That also did not resolve the problem. I think an important piece evidence is that hyperlinks do work on the same spreadsheet where they fail in Excel when I open it in Open Office. That shows that the fault is not with the spreadsheet data and it is not with Windows 11. The problem is with Microsoft Office.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-21T06:26:31.6366667+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

In case the solutions didn't work, here are some alternatives you can try:

Test one failing hyperlink after renaming the target file or folder to remove #, if any path contains it.

Excel’s Hyperlink Base setting could hijack link behavior, try deleting File > Info > Advanced Properties > Hyperlink Base to see if it fixed the problem in that workbook.

You can also try changing the default browser to a different browser and then changing it back as it can solve Office’s link handoff layer getting stuck.

Compare the Office build and channel on the broken machine against any machine where the same file still works, then consider forcing an Office update or reverting to a known-good build with OfficeC2RClient.exe.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-21T16:34:45.0533333+00:00
Thanks, Kai-H for your further attempts to resolve the problem.

None of my hyperlinks contain the symbol #.

I tried deleting the text in the Hyperlink Base. That did not resolve the problem.

Since my links point to files on my PC rather than to web pages, changing my default browser should have no effect. However, I did try changing the default browser. That did not resolve the problem.

Also, as you suggested, I uninstalled Office and reinstalled it. That did not resolve the problem.

I just created a new Excel spreadsheet with a test hyperlink on my wife's Windows 11 laptop. When I clicked on the link, I got a warning message that links may be insecure. When I chose to continue, the hyperlink worked correctly and the document opened as it should. I just tried the same experiment on my PC. When I clicked the link, I got the same warning message about links being insecure. When I then chose to continue, there was no result. The hyperlink did not work and the document it pointed to did not open. So there is some difference between my PC and my wife's laptop in the way Office is set up. We are using the same release of Microsoft Office, Version 2603 (Build 19822.20182 Click-to-Run). This makes me suspect that the problem may lie in some registry entry, but I don't know where to look. I used Regedit to inspect the entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office, but I didn't see any obvious candidates.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-21T23:34:58.8133333+00:00

I just put a hyperlink in my spreadsheet that pointed to this web page rather than to a file on my PC. This hyperlink worked correctly. My problem apparently doesn't affect all hyperlinks, but rather just those that point to files on my PC.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-22T00:00:07.5133333+00:00

I executed file>info>Check for Issues>Inspect Document. The resulting report says "No links to other files were found" despite the fact that I inserted such a link in the spreadsheet. I tried the same procedure on my wife's laptop where hyperlinks are working normally. The inspection report on her laptop did not have an entry for Links to Other Files. This suggests that Excel is not recognizing the link as a link.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-22T00:39:09.1566667+00:00

I tried entering this formula: =HYPERLINK("C:/Users/kripk/Test file.txt"). It doesn't work. When I click the resulting link, nothing happens. However, if I replace the quoted text with the URL of this web page, then the link works. When I click it, the page opens correctly. Whatever problem I am having affects both inserted links and the =HYPERLINK function.
Bernard Kripkee 0 Reputation points

2026-04-22T02:00:37.1933333+00:00

According to Excel's help about the HYPERLINK function, in Excel for the web it only supports links to web pages. That seems to be how my system is behaving. Is it possible that my system was somehow converted to a web-only system? I will try to see if there is something I can do to install Office locally on my PC.
Kai-H 19,570 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-04-22T06:47:05.6666667+00:00

Hi, Bernard Kripkee

Thanks for the detailed testing, that actually helps narrow this down a lot. At this point I do not think your Office install has somehow become “web-only.” The desktop versions of Word and Excel support hyperlinks to files on your computer, while Microsoft 365 Online has the simplified hyperlink feature set.

What your tests suggest instead is that Office on this specific PC is failing to hand off local file links to Windows. There have also been previous Office build regressions where local hyperlink behavior broke in certain versions and users had to revert to an earlier Click-to-Run build while waiting for a fix.

Since the same Office build works correctly on your wife’s laptop, I would stop blaming the spreadsheet and focus on machine-specific Office behavior. The next things you should try are:

Create a new Windows user account on the same PC and test one simple local hyperlink there. If it works, that points to something corrupted in your current user profile or HKCU-level Office settings rather than Excel itself.

Test an explicit file URI instead of a plain path, for example:

=HYPERLINK("file:///C:/Users/[username]/Test%20file.txt","Open test file")

Older Office discussions show that Office sometimes handles file:// links differently from plain C:\ or C:/ paths.

If you only did a normal uninstall, run Microsoft’s full Office uninstall troubleshooter, then reinstall. A standard uninstall can leave Click-to-Run components or per-user settings behind. Previous Office issues have also shown that reinstall alone does not always clear a bad build/state.

Try a temporary rollback to an earlier Office build. If rollback fixes it, that is strong evidence this is an Office regression on your machine rather than bad file data.

If you are comfortable with Registry Editor, there is an older workaround called ForceShellExecute that tells Office to use the Windows shell to open links instead of Office’s own handling. In older Word/Excel discussions this was suggested for file:// hyperlink problems under:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet

add DWORD ForceShellExecute = 1

If Office is 32-bit on 64-bit Windows, the Wow6432Node path may also be relevant. I should add that reports are mixed on newer Office versions, so I would treat this as a test, not a guaranteed fix.

So my best guess now is: either a machine-specific Office/profile corruption, or a current build regression that only shows up on this PC. If a new Windows profile fixes it, the problem is probably in your user-level Office/registry settings. If rollback fixes it, the culprit is probably the installed Office build.

Answer 2

In Excel and Word, hyperlinks can appear as blue, underlined text but do nothing when clicked if the hyperlink functionality is broken or the links have become invalid. When this happens without any error message and the same paths still work in File Explorer or other apps, it is typically an Office-specific issue rather than a Windows problem.

For Excel specifically, there is a known issue where hyperlinks can become invalid or nonfunctional after copy/paste and sort operations. In that case, the visible text remains, but clicking the link does nothing. The documented resolution is to manually repair the hyperlinks in the affected workbook:

If a hyperlink has effectively been removed (clicking does nothing):
- Select the cell.
- Use Insert → Hyperlink (or Insert → Links → Hyperlink in newer ribbon versions).
- Re‑enter the correct address in the Address box and select OK.
If a hyperlink points to the wrong location:
- Right‑click the cell and choose Edit Hyperlink.
- Correct the path in the Address box and select OK.

If the issue is broader (all hyperlinks in multiple documents stopped working at once), and not just a few corrupted links, this typically indicates a deeper Office problem (for example, registry or configuration issues) similar to other Office malfunctions that have required repair or updates in related cases. In such situations, the practical next steps are:

Repair the Office installation from Windows (Installed Apps → Microsoft 365 → Repair/Online Repair) to restore normal hyperlink handling.
Ensure Office is fully updated, as some hyperlink issues (for example, on Mac or in specific versions) have been resolved by product updates.
For any individual links that still do not respond after repair, re‑create them using the Insert Hyperlink command as described above.

If hyperlinks still do not work across all Word and Excel files after repair and update, further investigation of the Office configuration and registry (similar to other Office error cases) is required, typically with support assistance.

References:

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Hyperlinks in Excel and Word stopped working.

2 additional answers

Your answer