But if you open excel first, then use file|open, everything is fine???

Sometimes one of these works when you're having trouble with double clicking on
the file in windows explorer:

Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)

--- or ---

Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver

The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets the windows registry to excel's
factory defaults.

Maybe one of these will work for you.

===========
For MSWord, you could try:
Close MSWord and
Windows Start Button|Run
winword /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
winword /regserver

If MSWord isn't fixed, I'd ask in a newsgroup dedicated to MSWord.

Alan wrote:

When I try to open an existing spreadsheet, a grey dialogue comes 6 times.
The path address is:

C:\Documents and Settings\Alan\My Documents\LOTTERY SYNDICATE

And in the LOTTERY SYNDICATE file there is a spreadsheet called RLS Monitor,
which is the sheet I recored all of the results on. The first grey dialogue
says:

C:\Documents.xls' could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name,
and verify that the file location is correct

So I click OK in the grey dialogue box and then the next grey dialgoue opens
saying:

'and.xls' could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name, and
verify that the file location is correct.

This happens another 4 times and the separate messages are as follws:

'Settings\Alan\My.xls, could not be found. Check the spelling of the file
name, and that the file location is correct.

'Documents\LOTTERY.xls' could not be found. Check etc etc etc.. as before

'SYNICATE\RLS.xls' could not be etc etc etc as before

'MONITOR.xls' could not be etc etc ..........

On the next click on OK, it opens.

The same thing happens with all Word documents, so I am guessing it has
something to do with the routing search facility, but I am no einstien.

Please help if you can. Regards - Alan

--

Dave Peterson