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
    2015-08-08T02:59:32+00:00

    VK,

    Sorry you are running into issues.  We are working hard to understand the different configurations that are running into issues.  While we understand the issue regarding Protected View, it sounds like you might be running into a slightly different issue.

    Can you please help us track down what might be causing your specific issue?  Here's some follow up questions that will help:

    • What version of Office are you using?  You can find this by going into an Office application, click on File, then Account, and then click the About <App> button.  The version information is at the top.
    • Does Excel and PowerPoint fail to open completely, or just when opening a file?
    • Do all Excel/PowerPoint files file to open or just some?
    • Are the files on your local machine (eg: My Documents), OneDrive, email attachments, etc.?
    • Do you have any add-ins enabled? You can find this by going into an Office application, click on File, then Options.  Under Add-Ins, are there "Active Application Add-ins", and if so, which ones?

    -Bryan

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-08T01:47:00+00:00

    Upgraded from Windows 7 to 10. Office 2013. Excel or Power point documents will not open. Says that Excel has run into a error that prevents it from working correctly. Excel will need to be closed as a result. Would like us to repair now?  The repair button does nothing. I did both the work arounds and didn't work. I tried the second workaround again (reinstalling office) but it didn't work, again.

    Do I have to wait for another update?

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-07T22:08:13+00:00

    I uninstalled and reinstalled Office 2013 and it works better than before but still doesn't work as well as before the upgrade. My advice to others is to not upgrade yet. Every time I start my computer I get a message that an office file needs my attention. I can open and edit all my office files on One Drive using my Surface tablet running Windows 8.1 and on my iPad but my computer that I upgraded to 10 is so unreliable. I pretty much hate it but I still have until the end of August to go back.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-07T06:25:05+00:00

    this is a complete disaster! all files locked cannot validate my account?? everything is acting very strange on my PC.. what's happening???

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-08-07T04:49:03+00:00

    Yep. It's about time for MS to step up to the bar and provide a realistic solution. It's difficult to understand why a problem that didn't exist in previous versions of Windows, and for which they claim to know the reason, can't be put right in short order.

    It's rumored that Windows 10 SP 1 will be out by the end of the month, and SP 2 sometime in October. Do we have to wait until then to be able to use this "better than ever" version of Windows? Two years + in the making, and they still don't have it right.

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