'there was a problem sending the command to the program' error message in windows 7 using word 2007

Anonymous
2009-11-25T05:18:50+00:00

in windows explorer, i double click on a word 2007 doc  and i get an error message 'there was a problem sending the command to the program'. if i click on it a second time - it will open. irritating ..... any suggestions?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-08-21T23:52:20+00:00

    After trying the procedures above, I finally figured it out.  In order to fix this problem you need to switch to M_A_C

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-10-24T04:07:25+00:00

    None of the above works for me. I wasted whole day trying to fix this stupid problem. Word 2007 is 100% a disaster.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-07-21T12:52:37+00:00

    I am having the same problem. Short of a complete uninstall/reinstall, I have tried everything suggested here and spent hours searching the Net for other possible answers. VERY frustrating!

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-09T15:19:52+00:00

    This solution worked for my situation.

    What happened:

    My computer came with MS Word Viewer installed

    Later, I installed MS Office

    After that point, I received the above error message EVERY TIME I opened a Word document from outside the application (eg, from Explorer, from an internet download, etc).

    What fixed it:

    Renaming/removing the key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\ddeexec

    (I didn't take any of the other steps, because they didn't apply for my configuration)

    Rationale:

    The ddeexec key contained information for sending DDE messages to the nonexistent "WordView" application, not to the full Word application that was *actually* opening the "Word.Document.12" files.  The MS Office installer probably should have modified this registry key, but did not.

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  5. Anonymous
    2010-06-24T16:06:37+00:00

    Is there a simpler solution than going spelunking in the Windows Registry?

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