Unable to open files!?!

[DotNetNewbie]

Hi,

I have a really odd thing happening. I have been running Vista Business on my laptop for some time now, along with Office 2007 without any issues at all.

Recently I have noticed that when opening a network drive and trying to open documents, spreadsheets etc it fails to find the file and will not open.

I thought this might be a network issue but the realised it was happening to local documents too.

Finally I have a similar problem with Outlook and attachments, I simply cannot open them:

Word will sit there with no document for ages, report it is not responding and then eventually do nothing. Trying a second or third time will eventually open the document.

Anyone with an idea of what might be causing this? Latest updates or AV maybe....not sure. Any suggestions most welcome.

Cheers,

David

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Question: If you open the application (Excel, Word) first, then go to Office Button > Open, will it open the files?

[tt][blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[DotNetNewbie]

Hi,

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question. It does indeed work. I checked this first as I thought it might have been a file association issue, but alas not

Oddly if I attempt to open the file for the second time, or sometimes third it works....

Cheers,

David

 

[dippncope]

Don't know if it is the same issue or not but I had a similar problem with all of my users and it turned out to be HP print drivers. It was taking up to 20 minutes to open a document and another 20 to print.
I ended up changing all of my HP printers to use HP universal drivers instead of PCL5,PCL6 or PS and after that all of my documents would open with out an issue. If nothing else it is a quick thing to try.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

It does indeed work. I checked this first as I thought it might have been a file association issue, but alas not

But it's still an important clue....

Go to Office Button > Excel Options > Advanced. Under the General section, uncheck Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)

[tt][blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[Lilliabeth]

Someone I know found this worked for him:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Microsoft-Word-1058/Microsoft-2007-word-Responding.htm

--Lilliabeth

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Whoa - that's kind of extreme, isn't it?

I'd suggest reserving edits of the registry for a little later in the troubleshooting process!

I've seen this same behavior a handful of times and it's never required changing a registry entry to fix it.

[tt][blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[DotNetNewbie]

Morning all,

Thanks for the replies:

John - this was already unticked, should I tick it instead? (didnt seem to make much difference from what I can tell).

Lilliabeth - Thanks for the link, but as suggested I will use that as the last ditch attempt for resolution...

Many thanks everyone.

David

 

[smah]

I had a user report this same conditions starting earlier this week. I haven't had a chance to investigate very far yet, but I do know: Microsoft Office Diagnostics did not cure the problem. Another use account on the same machine does not have this problem.

It's my understanding that this week's update was a security update that only affected PowerPoint

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-017.mspx

Could this have affected other office apps as well?

 

[cmeagan656]

It's my understanding that this week's update was a security update that only affected PowerPoint

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms09-017.mspx

Could this have affected other office apps as well?

Likely not. However, Office 2007 SP2

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953195

was rolled out in late April. I haven't had a chance to install it on my system yet but I have installed it on a couple of client's systems. One PC on one of those systems experienced similar symptoms as mentioned in this thread. I rolled that PC back to SP1 and all was fine. Coincidence? Maybe.



Hope this helps.

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[smah]

That PC in question does not have Office 2007 SP2 installed. I'm tempted to install it & see what happens. I'll post back if I do.

 

[DotNetNewbie]

Hi,

Thanks for all your replies. I have been on holiday for the last week.

Oddly after returning and installing a couple of outstanding office fixes (sadly I did not think to note which ones they were) the problem seems to have now resolved itself.

Again, thanks for everyone's time and effort.

Cheers,

David

 

[FNBIT]

If it happens again you can try to clean up your temporary files. Sometimes when this gets too full things like this start to happen.