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
    2015-09-09T18:14:02+00:00

    Fantastic Paul - your solution saved my day (and my business from missing an important deadline).  I simply adapted to my Excel 2013 problem (was working fine the night before) 

    Followed your steps 1 - 6 except:

    For step 3 right clicked on  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\excel.exe

    For step 5 selected my previous Windows 8 version (from the problematic Windows 10) 

    ...And I thought MS had finally gotten something right for a change...

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-09-03T04:27:23+00:00

    Like you, I am not really computer savy but I did go back to Windows 8.1 and life is much easier since I use Word and Excel a lot. We can go back to Windows 10 for free any time until next July and I do plan on doing that. Right now my computer works perfectly since going back to 8.1. I don't remember exactly how I did it but I just Googled it and there are several sites telling you how to do it. Also, videos really walking your through the procedure. If I had known how many people wanted  to go back I would have kept the instructions on going back. You only have one month from the time you upgraded to Windows 10 to go back to your original OS but there are instructions on how to get around that. I could only stand Windows 10 for two weeks so I had time to just go back. It was quite easy but I can't remember the exact steps.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-09-03T02:15:50+00:00

    I too am having "read-only" and "compatible mode" issues with my old word documents after upgrading from Windows 7 to 10.  It also seems that some accesses to Word will not work and when I do get close to the right page Windows 10 won't allow me to open a new document.  I do not use Power Point or Excel, only Word and only for simple projects.  As such, I am not technically savvy on how to follow the protocol MSN recommends; therefore, I am thinking of returning to Windows 7 and trying 10 at some point down the road.

    For those of you who have gone back to a previous form of Windows, such as 8.1 or 7, how do you do this?  And do you recommend that I do or do you have another option for me to try so that this upgrade will work?  All I want to do is edit an old document, for goodness sakes...

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-09-02T20:58:31+00:00

    Need help with Excel!!!

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-09-02T16:54:58+00:00

    Everything was opening fine with my office 2013, and I had updated from Win8.1 to Win 10, no issues at all. 

    Now I'm unable to open my powerpoint and I have an important lecture to give in a days time. I've just spent the last three hours trying to get the darn program to work. Reset, restart, uninstall, reinstall. update. nothing is working. 

    I am so frustrated right now!!!!

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