Office 2007

brad-

I installed Office 2007 on one of our employees XP laptops recently. XLS files open fine. However, XLSX files will not open normally, even files she creates. I figure...no big deal, I'll run a repair with the CD. Didnt help. I figure...no big deal, I'll uninstall and reinstall --yes with admin rights. Didnt help.

I cant doubleclick to open (throws error "not a valid win32 application"), cant rightclick to open, cant select excel from a list of programs. I can however open excel, then do the file--open though. I did the same install on 4 other laptops no issues.

Has anyone else seen this?

astorrs

Can you check the details for the open action on the XLSX file type association?

Open Explorer, View->Options, select the File Types tab, scroll down to XLSX, click the Edit button, check what Open does.

It probably says something along the lines of "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE /n" And you probably have it enabled to use DDE. Compare it to the other machines settings, if they are the same try unchecking DDE and just appending %1 to the path to verify if it is DDE that's messed up.

paintb4707

brad- wrote:

I installed Office 2007 on one of our employees XP laptops recently. XLS files open fine. However, XLSX files will not open normally, even files she creates. I figure...no big deal, I'll run a repair with the CD. Didnt help. I figure...no big deal, I'll uninstall and reinstall --yes with admin rights. Didnt help.

I cant doubleclick to open (throws error "not a valid win32 application"), cant rightclick to open, cant select excel from a list of programs. I can however open excel, then do the file--open though. I did the same install on 4 other laptops no issues.

Has anyone else seen this?

I've seen this issue with Excel 2000/2002. Not sure if its the same with 2007 but if you go to Tools > Options > General, "Ignore other applications" should be unchecked

You should then be able to double-click to open.

brad-

astorrs wrote:

Can you check the details for the open action on the XLSX file type association?

Open Explorer, View->Options, select the File Types tab, scroll down to XLSX, click the Edit button, check what Open does.

It probably says something along the lines of "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE /n" And you probably have it enabled to use DDE. Compare it to the other machines settings, if they are the same try unchecking DDE and just appending %1 to the path to verify if it is DDE that's messed up.

Interestingly, my pc has different options than the laptop. There is no advanced option on the laptop - it just says restore. This sucks.

undomiel

Restore? It sounds like you're looking in a different area than astorrs pointed to.
Explorer->Tools->Folder Options->File Types->XLSX->Advanced->highlight open->Edit

May be different path under Vista, as I don't have that in front of me to verify.

astorrs

brad- wrote:

astorrs wrote:

Can you check the details for the open action on the XLSX file type association?

Open Explorer, View->Options, select the File Types tab, scroll down to XLSX, click the Edit button, check what Open does.

It probably says something along the lines of "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE /n" And you probably have it enabled to use DDE. Compare it to the other machines settings, if they are the same try unchecking DDE and just appending %1 to the path to verify if it is DDE that's messed up.

Interestingly, my pc has different options than the laptop. There is no advanced option on the laptop - it just says restore. This sucks.

Make sure you're running as an admin. What version of Windows/Service Pack is this?

brad-

Ya I'm in the same place. Everything else is the same in the interface but one says "restore" and one says "advanced". Its strange.

Logged in as admin, XpSp2.

I'll post the solution when I find one.

dynamik

I thought this happened to me before, and it ended up being something stupid, like a problem with the .NET Framework. I can't remember for sure. You may want to broaden your search and not just focus on Office. I'll post back if I remember/come across the details. Good luck.

Edit: Is it creating an event in the event log? Maybe there's an error code.