Error: Windows cannot find filename when opening .DOC files from Windows Explorer
When you double-click a .doc file to open it using Word 2003 or Word 2007, the following error may occur and the document does not open:
However, you may be able to open the file using the File/Open… option within Microsoft Word.
The above symptom was observed in my client’s PC. The file association for .DOC appeared correct when inspected using FileExtInfo tool. The error sounds as if DDE is not working correctly or some program is interrupting it. Here is what which worked in my client’s PC running Windows Vista and Word 2003.
Instructions for Windows Vista (also applies to Windows 2000/XP)
1. Click Start, type regedit.exe and press ENTER:
2. Navigate to the following key and backup the key:
3. Right-click the ddeexec key and choose Delete. Click Yes to confirm.
4. Navigate to the following key:
5. Double-click (default) and set its value data to:
For Word 2003
For Word 2007
6. Exit the Registry Editor.
Instructions for Windows XP
In Windows XP, you can use the Folder Options applet to disable DDE for a file type action. Here are the instructions:
1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Click Tools, Folder Options, select the File Types tab.
3. Select .DOC file type from the list
4. Click Advanced
5. Select open and click Edit
6. Uncheck Use DDE checkbox and click OK.
7. Click OK, OK.
If that above does not help, check if one of the Office Add-ins is causing the error.
SEE ALSO
Excel opens without displaying a workbook
You cannot open a Word 2007 document or a Word 2003 document from Windows Explorer
How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word
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Comment by Micky on 28 June 2008:
Hi,
In paragraph 5, of Instructions for Windows Vista - to the best of my knowledge - this is wrong:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\WINWORD.EXE” /n “%1″
shouldn’t it be:
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE” /n “%1″
or OfficeXX - regarding the version:
Office11 for v. 2003
Office10 for v. 2002
Office9 for v. 2000
Please check the above and I will appreciate some notice to my E-Mail in order to come beck and see if ant changes were made by you.
Thanks, Micky
Comment by Ramesh Srinivasan on 2 July 2008:
Thanks for the note, Micky. I’ve just updated the article.
Comment by Marlon on 30 July 2008:
I had the same error trying to open various Doc & DocX files from Vista Windows Explorer, and yet the same files opened fine within Word 2007. I checked the programs associated with the various file extensions and found many of the Word files were associated with MS WORD VIEWER. I am guessing that this user’s computer initially had MS WORD VIEWER & Office 2007 was later installed. After some experimentation, I deleted MS WORD VIEWER, rebooted, launched Word 2007 directly & Word automatically changed all of the file extension associations to Word. All is well again.
Manually changing the file extensions was not sufficient (I suspect the user was accidently launching Word Viewer sometimes which switched back the associations).
Good luck.