Double-clicking to open any Word document produces two windows. The first window attempts to open the Word document using Excel, with a message that the file is not valid (obviously because the file is a Word document rather than Excel spreadsheet). Closing the Excel window reveals the second window, which correctly opens the document using Microsoft Word. Running the Check Disk utility has not resolved the problem. This is not a critical problem, as I can still open the documents, but is still an inconvenience. How can I stop the document from incorrectly opening in Excel, and just opening in Word?

It is very strange that Word documents are opening in both Word and Excel, since the documents should only open in a single associated program (in this case, Microsoft Word). However, the fact the document is opening in both Word and Excel could indicate a file association problem. As a first step, we can try re-creating the Word document (.DOC) file association to ensure that the documents only open in Microsoft Word. The easiest way to complete this operation is find a Word file on your computer (using Windows Explorer or My Computer) then right-click on the Word document file and select “Open With” from the context menu. This will open a window allowing you to select which application should be used to open that file type. In this case, it will be prompting you to select which program should be used to open the Word document (.DOC) file type. Obviously, you wish to open the file using Microsoft Word. As such, select “Microsoft Word” from the list of applications. Tick the option “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” and click OK. This will reset the file association so Word document files are always opened using Microsoft Word. If the Word document opens correctly after clicking the OK button (and Excel does not attempt to hijack the opening of the file) close Word and then try double-clicking a Word document file to see whether this works properly as well.

Should the problem not be resolved, and Excel continues its attempts to open the Word document, the file association corruption may be deeper. Therefore, we will need to delete the entire file association for Word documents and then re-create this association. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer and then go to the “Tools” menu > “Folder Options”. In the window that appears, click the “File Types” tab. Look through the list of file extensions until you find the DOC file type. Highlight this file type, and click “Delete”. This will completely remove the file association from the computer. Once this has been done, restart the computer. After the computer has restarted, re-create the file association using the method described previously in this solution. Then, check whether the Word files open correctly.

If the problem is still not resolved, the next possible cause is that something within Word itself is triggering Excel to attempt to open the document. This may be a macro within Word or another add-in causing this behaviour. To check this possibility, we will try disabling all add-ins and extensions within Word to see whether that will resolve the problem. Open Word and go to the “Tools” menu > ?Templates and Add-ins?. In the window that appears, click the “Templates” tab. Under the ?Global templates and add-ins? heading, note down any entries which are currently ticked and then untick each entry. Click OK to save and close the window. Next, go to the “Tools” menu > “Macro” > “Macros”. In the Macros window that appears, write down any macros which are listed. Then, delete all macros which are listed. Be aware, this may adversely affect programs which have integrated with your installation of Word. The only way to re-create these macros will be to reinstall the software or Word add-in associated with the macro. This is why you need to write down the names of the macros prior to deletion. Once all the macros have been removed, close the box. Now, close Word and try to re-open a document to see whether the problem persists. Should the problem be resolved, you need to use a systematic trial-and-error approach to determine the root cause of the problem. As a starting point, open Word and re-enable all the add-ins which you previously disabled. Close Word, and then re-open a document to see whether the problem re-occurs. If it does, one of the add-ins is causing the problem. In this case, disable one of the add-ons, restart Word and check whether the problem persists. Repeat this procedure until the problem stops. At which time, you will know which add-in is causing the problem. Once this has been determined, you just leave this add-in disabled. However, if the add-in is critical to your work on the computer you may wish to check whether an updated version of the add-in is available which may resolve the problem being experienced.

In the event that enabling all the add-ins does not cause the problem to occur, this indicates that one of the previously deleted macros was causing the problem. In this case, it will be difficult to determine the macro causing the problem since we deleted all the macros in a previous step! In this case, just carefully monitor the installation of any software which includes macros within Word in case this triggers the problem to occur again.

Should all else fail and the problem continues after trying all the previous steps, your last resort is to attempt a full reinstallation of Office. This may help replace any files or associations which have become corrupted.