Disable the Office Plugin that comes with Symantec/Norton AntiVirus.
See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329820 "How to use Office
programs with the Norton AntiVirus Office plug-in" for more info.

Sterling wrote:

This was an upgrade from Office 97. When I try to open Word files I get a
message that file is "...not available", excel files "...virus scanner has
detected a problem" and ppt files "can't read...". It does the same thing for
files I just created using this new MS Office 2003. Please help? Thanks.