Why do Microsoft Office Excel and Word not know how to open files?

Question

I have Windows Vista and Office 2007.

Whenever I click on a document such as an Excel or Word document I get this error.

It's annoying as I have to wait for the application to load, get the error and then re-open the file.

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Answer 1

This may be a known bug as Microsoft has a Knowledgebase article about it:
"Cannot find the file" error message when you try to open a workbook by double-clicking the .xls file

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In Registry Editor, locate the following subkey in the registry:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office
4. Expand the subkey that corresponds to the earlier version of Excel, and then click the Excel subkey.
5. Right-click the Excel subkey, and then click Rename.
6. Type OldExcel, and then press ENTER.
7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 for any other subkeys for earlier versions of Excel.
8. Locate the following subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office
9. Expand the subkey that corresponds to the earlier version of Excel, and then click the Excel subkey.
10. Right-click the Excel subkey, and then click Rename.
11. Type OldExcel, and then press ENTER.
12. Repeat steps 9 through 11 for any other subkeys for earlier versions of Excel.
13. Quit Registry Editor.
14. Start Excel. (This makes sure that the appropriate registry entries are created.)
15. Quit Excel.
16. Double-click an .xls file to start Excel and open the workbook.