Preview doesn't work in Open dialog window Office 2007

[Gordon]

Office Standard 2007 SP2 on Windows 7 Home Premium.
If I do Office Button-Open and choose the Preview pane and select any word
document, the preview pane says "This file can't be previewed because of an
error in the Microsoft Office Word previewer"

The same message appears in Excel obviously substituting "Excel" for "Word"
in the above....

I've run Office diagnostics with no errors reported.
This is a clean install of Office on a clean install of Windows 7

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Are you seeing the problem for all files, or just for some? I see it for a
few files that were created in 2006 (probably created with an early Word
2007 beta), but not with most files.

In Word... if it's happening for all files, what happens if you start word
using the /a switch? (Start - winword /a)

Also... does the preview work in Windows Explorer?

Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Gordon]

Are you seeing the problem for all files, or just for some? I see it for a
few files that were created in 2006 (probably created with an early Word
2007 beta), but not with most files.

Seems to be all Word files, whether they were created with Word 2003 or Word
2007. (Never had any Beta Office software installed)

In Word... if it's happening for all files, what happens if you start word
using the /a switch? (Start - winword /a)

Yes, that seems to work.

Also... does the preview work in Windows Explorer?

Yes it does. And it now seems to be working in Word when it's been started
normally......strange! But Excel still doesn't work, even using "excel /a"
to start...

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I don't believe that Excel has a /a switch. Instead, hold down the Ctrl key
when starting Excel, then click Yes to the prompt to starting Excel in safe
mode.

--

Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[Gordon]

I don't believe that Excel has a /a switch. Instead, hold down the Ctrl
key when starting Excel, then click Yes to the prompt to starting Excel in
safe mode.

Still doesn't work in Excel. And Word has reverted to the error message as
well.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

I would check both Excel and Word for any add-in(s) they're both using, and
disable them to see if the problem goes away.

--

Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[MLG]

I have the same error message Gordon noted. The Word previewer worked in
Office 2007 on my Windows XP system. I recently installed Office 2007 on a
new computer that came with Windows 7 and now I have no Word previewer. No
work around seems to fix it.