Hello,

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Type about:preferences#general<enter>

Under Tabs, turn on Open links in tabs instead of new windows

Actually, I already had that setting (Open links in tabs instead of new windows) in place, even check for it again, yet the problem continues to exist. Thank you anyway.

Hi al110,

Try opening firefox in Safe mode,

• Find the Firefox icon or click Start and type Firefox.
• Hold down the Shift key on the keyboard and then click the Firefox icon.
• In the Firefox Safe Mode window, click the Start in Safe Mode option.

If it doesn't worked, then feel free to ask in Reply Section. thanks for raising your question in Mozilla Support Forum.

Clicking on hyperlinks that are in external documents (Word, Excel, or any other) opens webpages in separate Firefox windows outside of the main open Firefox window that reflects all of my customized Firefox settings. These separate window open with Firefox, as is the set default browser; however, none of these separate windows carry over my custom Firefox setting, styles, etc. Also, their tabs cannot be dragged into the main Firefox window as a tab there. I've checked all of my Firefox settings and the support knowledge base, where nothing was found that addresses this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Firefox may be set as the Default Browser for Windows 10, but within the Firefox Profiles Manager it sounds like the default Profile is other than the Profile that has your custom settings. External links have always only opened with the Default Profile, and since Firefox started allowing multiple Firefox Profiles to be run simultaneously and added about:profiles, the user has a way to see that and to set a different Profile as the default in Firefox if they should so wish.

With one Firefox window opened from the desktop shortcut.
Type about:profiles in the URL bar and hit Enter.
Look for the Profile that says This is the profile in use and it cannot be deleted. That is most likely the "Default" Profile in the Profile Manager system inside Firefox. "Default" in the Profile name may be a misnomer, I have 5 labeled with that "name". Three as the result of 3 Firefox "Refresh".

Look for the Launch profile in new browser button and open any Profile that has that button available for use.
Then when you find the Profile that you want as the "default" for Firefox, use the Set as default profile button.

Restart Firefox and see the results of this fix.

“about:profiles” found 5 profiles, all named “Default, followed by contextually meaningless word for naming differentiation. Each one was previewed. Surprisingly not one of these 5 profiles displayed my custom profile. In frustration with the implementation and operation of profiles, I decided to start over, backed up my bookmarks, noted my extensions and other settings and backed up and then deleted the confounding Profiles folder in …\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox.

Strangely, even after having deleted the entire Firefox\Profiles there, when I restarted Firefox it opened fine with my bookmarks and custom settings, including screen coloration made with the Firefox Color Add-in Extension. Yet as before, the original problem remains, wherein external links open outside of the main Firefox instance in a separate Firefox window in an entirely different instance of Firefox containing none of my bookmarks, styling or other settings.

At this point, I’m thinking that the best course of action is a complete uninstall/reinstall of Firefox. BTW, note that none of this has to do with the May Windows 2004 update, which I just installed today. The issue occurred befre and after that and with the current version of Firefox. Will report back.

Hi al110, can you confirm that you use the regular Firefox from Mozilla, and not the "PortableApps" version of Firefox? Assuming so:

What you're experiencing can indicate that your regular profile is not currently considered the "default" profile by Firefox. Could you compare the regular window and one of the other windows in this area:

Open the Troubleshooting Information page using either

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

In the first table on the page, on the Profile Folder row, compare the paths. One of them is your normal profile, and the other one might be set as the default. For now, the important part is the part after the dot, which could be something like default, default-release, default-longnumber or a completely different name.

In your regular Firefox, type or paste about:profiles in the address bar and make sure the profile you prefer is marked as the default. If it has a button labeled "Set as default profile" under it, go ahead and click that button to make it the default.

If it's already the default or that doesn't make any difference, hmm, we'll have to dig deeper.

“about:profiles” found 5 profiles, all named “Default, followed by contextually meaningless word for naming differentiation.

I think your are referring to the "short name" for Profile, but I will start with explaining the "long names" first, which IMO contains more information to learn about the "why" and "how". Maybe TL;dr for your needs, but that's "how I work".

The 8 character suffix of the Profile "name" is randomly generated inside Firefox when it is first installed, a Refresh is done, or a new Profile is created by the user. Then there is a hyphen followed by 12 numbers (date & time code Firefox uses for the Refresh feature) at the end of the Profile name for Profiles where the user did a Refresh of a Profile. And a Profile that says default if for the original Profile that Firefox created upon installation; after a Refresh procedure is performed by the user on a default Profile that identification remains with the "new Profile" when is created as the Refresh procedure is performed.

And that is with the Profile name that appears in the "Root Directory" which does have more alpha / numeric characters that show to the right of Profile: (the "short name" is shown there) above where the "directory locations" are displayed with their "long names" that was used before the user got that about:profiles feature and where the "user control buttons" are located in about:profiles . IOW, the "olden days".

IMO and experience, any "name" other than a lower case "default" is present indicates a user name that a user typed in when that user created a new Profile. iirc, that is the "naming convention", but with the 9 Profiles that I currently have I have

All,

Thanks to all of you who have kindly and helpfully assisted. All were very informative and much appreciated. In turn, please note that, as indicated above by jscher2000, I found out upon my uninstall and reinstallation of Firefox that the problem was due to my Firefox having not been the regular Firefox from Mozilla, but the "PortableApps" version of Firefox that I had installed! After uninstalling the PortableApps installation of Firefox from the PortableApps framework and newly installing instead from Mozilla, everything works perfectly.

Nevertheless, I happy that this was uncovered so that others may be spared having to work through the problem I had. So all that's left to consider now is to communicate this to PortableApps and/or Mozilla in the hopes that the PortableApps version can be better coordinated for the sake of those wishing to use the fine features and concepts of PortableApps. Meanwhile, for such system-centric programs as a browser, I'm content with having the full installation on my system,especially since I can apparently set it to auto-update as well.

Finally, I'm amazed at how elegant, efficient and customizable tte Firefox browser is! I will be a supporter of it and the concepts behind Mozilla. Thanks to all.

Hi al110, thanks for reporting back. There's nothing wrong with PortableFirefox for a self-contained installation, but it isn't easy to make it your default browser so that probably led to the "two Firefoxes" confusion.