Software

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Trouble Opening Office Documents

0 helpful
3 replies

by chriskenny

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I'm running Windows XP and Office 2003 Student/Teacher edition. Lately I am unable to open Office documents from either Windows Explorer or from the My Recent Documents file. I've checked the program associations and all are correct (.doc files are associated with Word, .xls files are associated with Excel, etc.) When I click on the document's icon in the My Recent Documents listing, for example, nothing happens at all. There's no error message, just....nothing. Not sure why this came about recently as I haven't made any system changes. I reinstalled Office, to no avail. Any advice? Thanks!

3 replies

by gary56789

First, make sure you are free of viruses and spyware. Update your programs first before you scan. If you need spyware checkers, Spybot and MS AntiSpyware (you need both) will do just fine (unless you want to invest in one of the top two commercial versions). If they detect anything, delete everything (do not quarantine) and rerun the programs again. If they still find something, reboot in Safe Mode and scan again until they find nothing.

If you find any spyware, and your system still doesn't operate properly after scanning, you may have to reinstall the OS, so save all needed files to other media just in case. Many spyware programs nowadays "break" parts of the OS, necessitating a reinstall or repair of the OS.

by parthiv_13

There is an OPTION given in Office under HELP menu >> Detect and Repair. Try to utilise that. If you have any curruption in Office 2003 it will repair by itself. But you must have source copy of Office with you either on CD or on Harddisk for replacement of currpted or missing files with new files from Source.

If your product is genuine then you can also call microsoft's tall free customer service or your local vendor for solution. The numbers will be on you Genuine CD or its authorised paper.

Good LUCK.

by chriskenny

Thanks. I installed McAfee AV. While it didn't detect anything, after re-booting and running winword.exe /r, Word is back to normal, including enabling me to open Word documents from "My Recent Documents", etc. Thanks!

This discussion is closed to new replies.