I had two versions of Microsoft Office on my computer -- Office 2007 and Office 2013 (aka Office 365). I can't remember why -- probably, I wanted to make sure 2013 worked all right before deleting 2007. Having both was fine, except the default version of Office kept being 2007 instead of 2013, unless I had 2013 open already.
Anyway, before I upgraded to Windows 10, I decided to do away with the older 2007. However, after I removed Office 2007, the same file types -- .DOCX and .XLSX -- were coming up with the error message above.
The way to fix this was not obvious at all.
But the solution is fairly simple:
- Open Control Panel in your version of Windows. To do this, maybe right-click on the Start button and choose Control Panel.
- Depending on your View, you need to click on Programs > Programs and Features.
- Find your version of Office in the list.
- Click on it to highlight the program.
- The menu at the top will change to:
[Organize] [Uninstall] [Change]. - Click on [Change].
- Click on "(x) Quick Repair" and hit [Repair].
After a couple of minutes that should work.
It seems like using Programs > Default Programs > "Associate file type or protocol with a program" should work, but it didn't work for me.
Seems there used to be a more direct "Detect and Repair" function in Office, but it's not there from what I can tell.
