When I try to open a document by clicking on its icon either in My
Documents-or anywhere else on my computer, Word 97 opens a blank document,
instead of the one I selected. Any idea on why that happens? And I'm not
talking about trying to open it directly from Word, but instead by opening
the file from where it exists on the computer (like going into my documents
and opening it from there). I want to be able to just double click the file,
and have it open directly. Any help would be appreciated.

On Wed, 20 Jul 2005 12:22:03 -0700, "AelwynB"
wrote:

When I try to open a document by clicking on its icon either in My
Documents-or anywhere else on my computer, Word 97 opens a blank document,
instead of the one I selected. Any idea on why that happens? And I'm not
talking about trying to open it directly from Word, but instead by opening
the file from where it exists on the computer (like going into my documents
and opening it from there). I want to be able to just double click the file,
and have it open directly. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm not sure this is the cause of the problem, but I've seen it happen
a couple of times...

- In Windows Explorer, click Tools Folder Options File Types.
- Select the DOC extension in the list and click the Advanced button.
- Select the Open action and click the Edit button.
- Look at the entry for DDE Message. It should say
[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen("%1")]
The Topic entry should say System. If those entries are incorrect,
fix them and click OK.

If that doesn't help, try going to Start Run and entering

winword.exe /r

to make Word rewrite its registry entries.

Good luck!

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org