Software

Can you open excel and create a new spreadsheet, save it and then reopen it?

Let's elimminate damaged files as the first suspect condition.

No I cannot open excel or any spreadsheets

try it in safe mode. i would be nervous about possibly having a virus unless i knew my protection was really up to snuff
can word open them (really)

Try repairing the office installation - open one of the other office programs (e.g. word) and select "detect and repair" from the help menu.

go to www.openoffice.org and download openoffice.
I have opened several excel and word file that MS office could not or would not open.

Open them in OpenOffice and save execl format.
Then you should be able to use MS Office Excel for that file.
Same goes for Word doc.

The header for the file get damage and MS Office will not open the files.
OpenOffice does not look at MS Office header format to open the file. That is why OpenOffice can open them.

OpenOffice is FREE and a great product.
Check them out.

It could be a macro virus. Delete any file in your xl start-up directory.

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