I have been researching a similar problem. I get the "Cannot download the information you requested" error message when hyperlinking to a secure, non-caching, login page using PowerPoint 2016. In my case, PowerPoint pops up an authentication window and crashes instead of opening my default browser with the URL.
The problem seems to be related to how Office Products open hyperlinks, as noted in this comment. Apparently, they route the initial request through Internet Explorer regardless of your default browser.
You can work around this by hyperlinking to a .bat
file that opens the link instead. Open a text editor and create the following .bat
file:
@echo off
REM Office fails to open Hyperlinks
REM This .bat file can do it though
REM See https://superuser.com/questions/826552/cannot-download-the-information-you-requested-power-point-word-excel/1474218 for details
start "" "https://superuser.com/"
The only downside to this solution is having to click Enable
on a security warning.
If this isn't your style Microsoft has a documented solution:
- Modify the registry using the easy fix from the linked Microsoft troubleshooting page
To have us work around this problem for you, go to the "Here's an easy fix" section.
- Modify the registry manually using the instructions from the linked Microsoft troubleshooting page
To work around this issue, either add the ForceShellExecute subkey, if it is not present, and set the Value data, or if it is present, set the Valuedata of the ForceShellExecute subkey.