Cannot open some Office files after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10

Anonymous
2015-08-06T07:01:10+00:00

Hi everyone,

This is Bryan from the Office team.  We are extremely sorry to learn that some of you are running into an issue with Office after upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 where some of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents are failing to open with various error messages, such as:

  • Word: “Word experienced an error trying to open the file”
  • Excel: “This file is corrupt and cannot be opened”
  • PowerPoint:
    • “The application was unable to start correctly"
    • “PowerPoint found a problem with <filename>"
    • “Sorry, PowerPoint can’t read <filename>"

[UPDATE - 8/25/2015]

On Monday, a fix went out to all Office 2013 Click-to-Run users that fixed the Protected View issue that was preventing some files from opening.  For those users, the Office applications would launch and even creating new documents worked fine; however, opening some files resulted in various error messages like above.  If you haven't already been prompted to install the August update, you can manually trigger by going into an Office application like Word, then select File > Account > Update Options > Update Now.

There are other known issues that could also cause similar error messages, but those are not related to the specific Protected View issue.  Teams are working hard to determine the root cause and resolve those issues.  For instance, if you are running Windows 10 and Office is running in Windows compatibility mode for a prior version, you likely will also experience issues.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused due to this issue!

Sincerely,

Bryan

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-08-22T02:33:54+00:00

    This issue of unlicensed product needs to be addressed pronto

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-26T02:10:45+00:00

    Hey Basil,

    Sorry you are running into issues.  Do you happen to know if you are running Office in Compatibility Mode?  Probably the easiest way to determine this is by running a command prompt as admin (Win + X key) and running:

    reg query "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers"

    Best regards,

    Bryan

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-26T11:05:33+00:00

    Hi Bryan,

    Thank you so much for this information, it has resolved my problems after running the command prompt.

    Keep up the good work as I am now enjoying the upgrade to Windows 10.

    Much appreciated for your support.

    Regards,

    Basil Mutisya

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-27T13:32:04+00:00

    I'm astonished that you didn't user-test your own products before releasing the new operating system.

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-08-28T00:11:32+00:00

    I cannot open Word since I downloaded Office 10. Your suggestion was to Word>file>Account>Update Now. I cannot open Word to get to file and the rest, if I go back to the previous version will my Word come back?

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