strange file association error

M

Mr157nm

I have windows xp pro sp2 installed and msoffice 2003. I have zonealarm
suite as firewall and antivirus.

I noticed that none of my documents (excel, word...) open in their
appropriate application when I double click the file. The executable opens
and stays empty. I can drag and drop the document into the executable and it
opens it fine. If I do a repair none of this is fixed. If I do a reinstall
it gets fixed, however only until I reboot and it reverts back to the
problem. anybody has an idea what this could be?

thanks
 
M

Mr157nm

in fact, it's just Excel03 and Word03 that behave that way. Powerpoint and
Access files open upon fine in the app upon double click.

strange
 
M

Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)

Mr

Go to Control Panel - Folder options and re- associate .doc and .xls files
with their respective applications..
 
M

Mr157nm

thank you, that was the first thing I looked at. It is strange that the
association is perfectly fine. It does not make a difference whether I
re-associate the files or not.

still looking and my hair is getting gray over this. I just did a fresh OS
install only a few days ago with all the updates both for windows and
ms2003 - very strange.
 
B

Beth Melton

Instead of trying to manually modify the file associations recreate
them by using the following:

Go to Start/Run and run:

winword /r
excel /regserver

Note the space before the forward slash.

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/
 
M

Mr157nm

thanks, If I am not wrong this would be the cmd for what I can do in Word
under Help/Detect and Repair

I've done this and your suggestions with no luck. I am almost at the point
were I think this does not have to do with registry settings or file
associations. I recently installed new Logitech drivers for my MX 1000
mouse. What I noticed is that one out of ten times (not reproducible) the
document opens in Word or Excel after a couple seconds. Maybe it has to do
with double click settings. I will uninstall these drivers and see what
happens.

thank you for your help
 
M

Mr157nm

wow, who would have thought about that. The new logitech drivers
setpoint231enu.exe for my MX1000 are the culprit. I will report this to
Logitech. Not sure how this works, but it sure works now after I uninstalled
the Logitech drivers. After several reboots it is still working.

thanks all for your help.
 
M

Mr157nm

hmm, Logitech web support is bad. No way to email or call support. all this
automated stuff :(
 
M

Mark Milliman

I am experiencing the same problem with any application that uses DDE to
open files. Clicking on them in Explorer opens the application but not the
file. I have verified that the "Ignore other applications" check box is
unchecked, and I have unregistered and reregistered both Word and Excel.
Nothing works. I have noticed that any application that uses DDE has this
problem. The file associations are correct. I have not been able to find
anything like it in the MSKB, MSDN, or through Google. Anyone have any
ideas? I have deep scanned my system for viruses and adware. I'm clean.

Thanks,
Mark
 
M

Mark Milliman

Beth:

You responded to my previous message so I won't do double duty in this
thread.

Mark Milliman
 
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