Bottom left of the main screen is a status window "Posting Rules" which lists the rules such as
vB Code is On, Smilies are On, IMG Code is On, HTML Code is Off.
Then when you click reply, as I am doing, you will find a window "Additional Options"
Under Miscellaneous Options you will find:
Automatically parse links in text and
Disable Smilies in text.
make sure that the parse links is TICKED and Smilies is UNTICKED