Double-Click Does Not Open Word File

[sobershea]

Hi All, a friend just re-installed Office 2007 on her PC. Now, when she double-clicks a document, she get an error message "there was a problem sending the command to the program". She can however, open Word and then open her documents. I had her "repair" Office, but that did nothing. BTW, she can open Excel files with a double-click. Does anyone have any ideas?

PS. She had a 2007 version of Office on her PC which she uninstalled and then re-installed the Small Business version of 2007.

TIA

[stuck]

Sounds like the problem is with Explorer's file type association, i.e. Explorer is not invoking Word when a doc is double clicked but instead something else, which can't open a doc is kicking in instead

RIGHT click on a doc the click on Properties. On the General tab, at the top, what does it say against 'Opens with:' If it does NOT say Word, click on the 'Change' button and the set it to use Word.

However, if Explorer DOES say Opens with Word then I'm out of ideas.

Ken

[HansV]

Some things to try if Ken's suggestion doesn't work:

1) In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 (or to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12 if she has 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows).
Right-click WINWORD.EXE and select Properties from the context menu.
If there is a Compatibility tab, activate it. Otherwise skip the rest of this part.
Clear all check boxes, then click OK.

2) In WIndows, click Start, then type regedit in the Search box. Start regedit.exe.
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open.
If there is a DDExec subkey, delete it.
Do the same for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12\shell\Open

3) Again in regedit, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word and delete the Data subkey.
Warning: this will reset many Word preferences to their default.

[sobershea]

It was the first thing you suggested, Hans. When we looked at the Compatibility tab, one item was checked - Run this program as administrator. As soon as we unchecked that, all was good. Thank you Ken and Hans.