Inconsistent and blocked links to the net

Recently in both Word and Excel , my hyperlinks to sites on the internet have started to fail. Until a week ago , a click on them in my document or spreadsheet would take me to the page on the net they point to with no issue.

Now I'm getting an error :

"Unable to open (site address). Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server"

This is very mysterious , and I've tried all sorts of things to correct it , but to no avail. I'm hoping someone here can help solve it.

Strangely too , I've found an anomaly. In a Word document I entered a link to Google and a link to Royal Mail. The link to Google goes through and opens on the net , but the Royal Mail one fails and gives the error popup. This is the same in both Word and Excel. To me this is baffling , but hopefully it might provide a clue to someone more expert than I am. I'll attach the file.

I have Firefox as my browser on Widows 7. These links have been connecting successfully for months , but just in the last few days have failed. I've made no changes to the setup I have to account for it. If I enter the same links into a browser , or run from the desktop , they connect with no issue.

Can someone help my hyperlinks start performing as before?

Grateful for any help.

Thanks for getting back.

I followed the link you suggested :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/off...lick-hyperlink

and found the part relevant to my machine. After a small tweak to the registry , this problem is solved! My hyperlinks are now connecting as they should , and have stopped giving errors.

Thanks very much for your help.