Cannot Open a Word or Excel Document from Explorer

[Mark Milliman]

This is my last resort to find help on this issue. I have the Standard
Edition of Office 2003. When I or any other user on this machine tries to
open a Word or Excel document (or any document that uses DDE from the
command line), the application opens but the document does not. I can click
to open the document once the application is already open. I can also open
it from the menu. It does not open if I right click and select "Open with."
Because of this problem I cannot open Word or Excel attachments on e-mail
messages. I have tried the following troubleshooting steps before posting
here:

1. Repair the installation
2. Unregistered and reregister the applications
3. Uncheck the "Ignore other applications" in Excel.
4. Reassociate the file types

Microsoft support gave up after 10 minutes and told me to just use file,
open from the menu. I could not dig up any articles in the Knowledge Base
or through Google. This problem is evident with any application that uses
DDE, not just Office applications. I really would like to get this feature
back because I often print multiple Word and Excel documents from the
context menu. Any smart MVP out there know the answer to this problem?

Thanks,
Mark

 

[Beth Melton]

First, if you use Norton AV then it could be an option in Norton
called the "Office Plug-in" that is causing the problem. It's been
known to interpret DDE as a 'threat' and stops the data exchange. Go
to Norton Options and under the Miscellaneous section turn off "Enable
Office Plug-in".

If that isn't it did you update your virus scanner recently?

Otherwise, what version of Windows are you using? What patches do you
have installed for Windows and Office? What other applications are
encountering this issue? Can you provide an example of the command you
are using to open a file? IOW, are you specifying a path or just the
file name? And just to clarify, are referring to the Command prompt or
the Run command?

Have you also tried repairing your Windows installation?

Along with the above, are you also saying you are unable to
double-click a Word or Excel file to open it outside the application?

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Mark Milliman]

Beth:

Thanks for your quick response. I am using NAV, but I have disabled the
plug-in. Although I am not sure if it is really disabled because I see
Excel and Word scanning my add-ins when it first starts. Office doesn't
have its own virus scanner right? I just ran Live Update manually so I'll
check it out after rebooting. I let NAV automatically update itself to keep
everything current.

I am using Windows XP Home SP 2 with all the latest patches that MS has
posted through Windows Update. Likewise I am using Office 2003 SP1 (Excel
11.6355.6408). Other applications that give me problems that use DDE are
the Palm Desktop for Palm OS and Palm Quick Install.

I am using the standard file associations created when I installed Office
2003 to launch the programs. All I do is click on the file icon in Explorer
and the application opens without opening the document. Explorer provides
the full path of the document and the application. I could type a command
such as excel "c:\documents and settings\Mark Milliman\My
Documents\Projects\Test Workbook.xls" and have it open successfully because
it doesn't use the file associations or DDE.

I have not tried repairing my Windows installation, and I am a bit
apprehensive to do so. Don't I lose all of my settings and have to
reinstall all the service packs and hotfixes?

You are correct that I cannot double-click on an icon in Explorer and have
it open the application AND document.

Hope this helps,
Mark

 

[Beth Melton]

If you see "Running virus scan" in the status bar when starting
Word/Excel or opening a file then either the Office Plug-in is still
enabled or you have another virus scanner that scans Office documents.

If you had a previous version of NAV installed then it's possible the
DLL for the plug-in for the previous version is enabled. It wouldn't
hurt to search for "officeav.dll" (without the quotes) and un-register
it using the following command on each Officeav.dll you may find.

Go to Start/Run and run:

regsvr32 /u "c:\program files\norton antivirus\officeav.dll"

In the above example the path for "Officeav.dll" would depend on the
location of the DLL.

Check the above out first before you do anything else.

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/

 

[Mark Milliman]

Beth:

I agree with your statement in the first paragraph, but I cannot for the
life of me figure out what is running. I did a barebones startup with only
MS services, no WIN.INI or SYSTEM.INI, and the original BOOT.INI. Only 16
processes were running. I even renamed the officeav.dll to oldofficeav.old
just for good measure. Word started and scaned for viruses. I was
flabbergasted. I only have one version of officeav.dll on the machine and
that is in "c:\program files\norton antivirus." When I try to unregister it
I receive an error message which indicates that it was not registered.

I agree that there seems to be another antivirus application hooked into
Word, but how do I find it? I have no explicit antivurus application other
than NAV. Nero Burning ROM 5.5 comes with a virus scanner but it only loads
when the application is running. The only other thing I can think could be
happening is that a previous version of NAV is still hanging around, but NAV
2005 uninstalled 2004 before installing 2005. Could it be that there is a
stray registry entry envoking something in Word? I am up for your next
suggestion.

Thanks again,
Mark

 

[Beth Melton]

Hi Mark,

Since you did have a previous version of NAV installed and then
uninstalled it then a registered version could still be lingering.

What if you re-register officeav.dll and then un-register it again?

Use:
regsvr32 "c:\program files\norton antivirus\officeav.dll"

Then:
regsvr32 /u "c:\program files\norton antivirus\officeav.dll"

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/