microsoft office won't open downloaded files Double-clicking an Office file fails to open it in the correct Office program. When you try to open an Excel workbook, a Word document or a PowerPoint presentation with Excel, Word, or PowerPoint, the following errors may occur: The file doesn’t open in the expected application. For instance, an Excel workbook doesn’t open in Excel 2019; instead, it opens in another app or an older version of Excel. An error indicating a file association problem may occur. For instance, you may get an error similar to “ This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. please install a program or if one is already installed create an associate in the default programs control panel " “ This action is only valid for products that are currently installed ” Note: If you've tried to open an Excel workbook but instead Excel only opens a blank screen see: Excel 2016 opens to a blank screen. Run a Quick Repair to fix the file association problem. Click the Start button. Note: If you're using Windows 7, just click Start > Control Panel then you can skip to step 3, below. Type and choose "Control Panel" Choose Programs > Programs and Features . Next, select the Office product you want to repair and then choose Change . Choose the Quick Repair option and then choose Repair . For more information about the repair option in Office, go to Repair an Office application. If that doesn't resolve the issue try manually associating the files to the correct app. Click the Start button. Note: If you're using Windows 7, just click Start > Control Panel then you can skip to step 3, below. Type and choose "Control Panel" Click Default Programs (if you don't see Default Programs, type it into the search box at the top right corner of the window and press enter) Choose Set your default programs. Select the Office app that isn't opening correctly and choose Set this program as default. Tip: You may want to repeat this process for the other Office apps while you're here. If you have multiple versions of Microsoft Office. Consider uninstalling the versions you don't need. To do that: Click the Start button. Note: If you're using Windows 7, just click Start > Control Panel then you can skip to step 3, below. Type and choose "Control Panel" Choose Uninstall a Program and select the version of Office you want to remove. Click Uninstall . Restart your computer. Having too many versions of Office on your computer can cause issues, including files opening in the wrong version of Office. Tip: In some cases you'll get your best result by uninstalling ALL versions of Office, then reinstalling just the version you want. If all else fails.. You should still be able to open your file by opening the application first, then opening the file from there. To do that: Start the program needed to access your document; Word, Excel or PowerPoint. When the program opens, click File > Open , find your file in the file navigator and open it. Still have a question about Office? Visit the Microsoft Answers Community to see questions and answers posted by others or get answers to your own questions. We're listening! This article was last updated by Ben on May 9th, 2019 in response to your feedback. If you found it helpful, and especially if you didn't, please use the feedback controls below and leave us some constructive feedback so we can continue to make it better. Fix problems opening documents in SharePoint libraries. If you run into issues opening Office files and documents from SharePoint document libraries, here are some suggestions to help you fix them. We recommend that you sync your document library with your computer to work with documents. Syncing creates a local folder on your computer where you can open and edit files easily. When you save a document, it's automatically uploaded to the SharePoint or OneDrive for work or school. For more information, see Sync SharePoint files with your computer. If the issue happens with Open with Explorer or View in File Explorer, see Open in Explorer or View with File Explorer. Download and check files locally. Some problems occur because of differences in versions of SharePoint server and Office. If you can't get it to work, try downloading the file and seeing if you can open it locally. Depending on the version of SharePoint, do one of the following: In SharePoint, select the file, and click Download on the command bar, or click the ellipses ( . ) and then click Download . In SharePoint Server 2016, select a file, click More on the command bar, and click Download , or right-click the document, and then click Download . For SharePoint Server 2013, select a file, click the ellipse ( . ) click the ellipse (. ) again in the dialog, and then click Download . ForSharePoint Server 2010, click the down arrow on a file, click Send to , and then click Download a copy . In your browser, click Save , and then Open folder to open the folder where the file is located. Right-click the file in the desktop folder, and then click Open With . Choose the app you want to use. If the file hasn't been assigned, it will pop up a dialog to select one. If the app isn't on the list, click Choose another app . Check the Always use this app to open box. Close the app and try double clicking the file to see if it opens the correct app. To find the version of SharePoint you're using, see Which version of SharePoint am I using?. Note: If you upgraded from an earlier version of Office to Office 2013 or Office 2016 on your computer, you might still have older versions of some programs like Visio and Project. If you use these programs, update them to 2013 or 2016. If you no longer use them, uninstall them. File corruption. If the file opened previously, but now doesn't, there could be a problem with a corrupt file, or the format is not compatible with any of your apps. Make sure when you save a file, you try to open it to make sure it was saved correctly. If you're sharing a file with other users, be sure they save files completely and using the same file format. For example, if a spreadsheet is opened as a .xls, make sure it's saved as an .xls file. Corrupt files can also prevent SharePoint from opening. If you suspect a corrupt file, download the document and try one of the methods outlined in these topics: File formats not supported. Newer versions of Office add new features that may not be available with older versions of Office. New versions can read documents created by older version, but older versions can't read newer documents. For example, Excel 2016 saves files in an .xlsx format, while Excel 2003 only reads .xls format. When sharing files in SharePoint, be sure your users have compatible versions of Office for documents. If you're using Microsoft 365, you can install the latest version to your desktop from the online link. Error: Can't read file, or Presentation cannot be opened. If you've arrived at this article because you got an error message that PowerPoint can't read a file or that the presentation cannot be opened, it's likely that Office has blocked the file for security reasons. You can unblock the file so it can be opened: Open Windows File Explorer (Open Start in Windows and type File Explorer .) Locate the problematic file on your computer. Right-click the file and select Properties . In the Properties dialog box, look for an Unblock button near the bottom right. If it exists, click Unblock , then click Apply , and then click OK to dismiss the dialog box. Now, attempt to open the presentation again. Right-click the file in File Explorer and select Open . Still having trouble? If you're having a problem with PowerPoint that's not resolved here, please contact us for technical support. For a discussion about why Office blocks files, read Block or unblock external content in Office documents. [Fixed] Office 365/2016/2013 Won't Open with 'Stopped Working' Error in Windows 10. Office 365, 2016, 2013 Won't Open in Windows 10 with 'Stopped Working' Error Message. According to Microsoft community and Google searching result, it seems that it's not a new problem for Windows users that Offices won't open after Windows 10 update with an 'Office stopped working' error message. If Microsoft Office 365, 2016 or 2013 has stopped working or cannot open normally, you may not be able to work or modify Word document or edit Excel files by then. So how to fix this issue and make Office work again in Windows 10/8/7? If you are having a similar problem with Office Word, Excel, PPT or other files on your PC and you cannot open Office to work, don't worry and you can just follow offered methods here below in this article to get the problem fixed on your own now. Method 1. Fix Office 'Stopped Working' Error in Windows 10 with an Online Repair Tool. When Microsoft Office 365, 2016 or 2013 stops working or won't open on your PC, you can directly try an Office repair to get the problem fixed in Windows 10/8/7: 1. Click "Start" > "Control Panel" > Select "Programs" > "Programs and Features"; 2. Right-click on Office 365, Office 2016 or Office 2013 > Select "Change"; 3. Click "Online Repair" > click on "Repair" button. Wait for the process to complete, restart Windows and see if Word, Excel or other Office application work correctly. Method 2. Repair Corrupted System Files and Open Office in Repair Not Working Office. Bad sectors may cause corrupted system files in Windows system, leading Office cannot work properly or other problems. When Microsoft Office fails to work or won't open with 'stopped working' error message, you may try to repair corrupted file systems and reboot PC into Safe Mode to get the problem fixed. Part 1. Repair Corrupted System Files. Free download, install and launch EaseUS Partition Master on your PC. EaseUS Partition Master Free will help you effectively repair corrupted system files with steps below. Step 1. Select the target partition that has a problem. Step 2. Choose "Advanced" > "Check File System". Step 3. In the Check File System window, check the "Try to fix errors if found" option. Step 4. Click "Start" to check errors on your partition. Part 2. Start and Open Office in Safe Mode ​ 1. Press Win + R to open Run dialog; 2. Type below command in the Run box. For Excel: Type excel /safe , and click OK . For Outlook: Type outlook /safe , and click OK . For Word: Type winword /safe , and click OK . For PowerPoint: Type powerpnt /safe , and click OK . For Publisher: Type mspub /safe , and click OK . For Visio: Type visio /safe , and click OK . 3. After this, you can start an Office application to see if the problem has been fixed or not. [Solved] 19 Fixes for Microsoft Office Won't Open Issues [MiniTool Tips] This article published by MiniTool brand offers you 19 solutions to fix Microsoft Office won't open problem. It is mainly based on the Windows 10 operating system, but most methods also apply to Windows 7 and Windows 8. Those ways are popular online and have helped thousands of users. Quick Navigation : “Microsoft Office won't open” refers to the Microsoft Office apps won't open. It can be one, several, or all of the Office programs that don’t open. For example, it can be Microsoft Excel won’t open, Microsoft Word won’t open, Microsoft Outlook won’t open, and so on. Microsoft Office Won't Open Cases. There are a lot of users online complaining about Microsoft office will not open issues. The following are some of the typical ones among all kinds of situations. Case 1. Microsoft Office Cannot Open After Update. “I just had an automatic update of my computer's Windows but now I can't get any of my Microsoft Office apps to open.” Case 2. Microsoft Office Doesn’t Open in the Correct Program. Sometimes, you may encounter such a situation: the Microsoft Office file does not open in the expected program. What does this mean? For example, a Word file can’t be opened with Microsoft Word 2019, instead, it may open in another application or an older version of Word. Case 3. Microsoft Office Does Not Open with a File Association Error. “This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or if one is already installed and create an association in the default programs control panel." Have you got the error “this file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action” in Windows 10? Get the solutions from this post. Case 4. Microsoft Office Has Stopped Working. “Microsoft Word has stopped working.” Many of you have ever encountered such an error. When it appears, it also states that Windows can check online for a solution to the problem. So, you can choose “Check online for a solution and close the program” or just “Close the program”. Besides the various cases, the situations of the Office opening problem are also different. Some may be no response after double-clicking, some may be stuck at the processing screen, some may be open with a blank screen, and so on. How to Fix Microsoft Office Won't Open Issues? Open Files from Microsoft Office Programs Check Task Manager Recreate Shorts for Microsoft Office Apps Make Sure Microsoft Office Is Activated Keep Microsoft Office Up-to-date Stop ClickToRunSvc Service Repair Microsoft Office Uninstall Unused Microsoft Office Versions Reinstall Microsoft Office Troubleshoot Microsoft Office File Association Manually Associate Files to the Correct Office Program Open Microsoft Office in Safe Mode Disable Microsoft Office Add-ins Update Windows Uninstall Windows Update Repair Corrupted File System Remove Old Printer Drivers Scan Virus on Your Computer Post in Microsoft Office Community. How to Fix Microsoft Office Won't Open Issues? For the different cases mentioned in the above content, there are different causes, and there are different fixes. Yet, if you do not know the cause of your situation or why won’t Microsoft Office open , if you don’t want to spend time to figure out the reason, or if you can’t figure out the cause of your problem, you can just try the following solutions one by one until you fix your problem. Solution 1. Open Files from Microsoft Office Programs. Sometimes, if you cannot open a Microsoft Office file by directly double-clicking on it, you can try to firstly open the corresponding Office program, then open the target file from the app. Step 1. Launch the correct Microsoft Office app, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Step 2. On its top menu, select File > Open . Step 3. Find and select your target file. If you can successfully open the target file, congratulations! If, unfortunately, you cannot, just go to the next solution. Solution 2. Check Task Manager. For Microsoft Office won’t open on Windows 10 problem, the symptom usually is that after you double-click a file and nothing opened. Or, after right-clicking on an Office file and select Open, there is no response. Does the file really not open? To confirm it, just go to Task Manager to check out in the Process tab. If, for example, the word program is running there, then, Windows system thinks the file is already opened. Yet, you still can’t see the file. What to do? Just right-click on the target file and choose Edit or Open . It may open the file for you. Want to end some tasks in Task Manager? How to open Task Manager for this work? In this post, you can know multiple ways to bring up Task Manager. Solution 3. Recreate Shorts for Microsoft Office Apps. If you can’t open any Microsoft Office programs through their shortcuts, you can directly open the actual executable files. To do that, first of all, you need to find where the Office executive files are. Depending on the different versions of Microsoft Office, you can find them in one of the below two locations. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12. Once you find the executable files of Office programs, double-click to open them. If you succeed, then, it is the shortcuts that should be blamed. So, recreate the shortcuts will fix the problem. Just right-click on the executable file and select Create shortcut . Solution 4. Make Sure Microsoft Office Is Activated. As for Microsoft Office won't start , chances may be that your Microsoft Office suite is not genuine. If that is true, you won’t be able to use any Microsoft Office programs. You can open them with blank, but you can do nothing with them like create contents and edit existing files. So, just use a genuine version of Office. If you do install Microsoft Office from a formal and legal website, you may also encounter open failure for you haven’t activated it. In such a case, just activate your Microsoft Office with your license. How to check whether the Office is activated or not? Just open any office program, go to File > Account , and you can see the details under Product Information . Solution 5. Keep Microsoft Office Up-to-date. Sometimes, Office programs can’t work properly for they are out-of-date. So, just install the latest update of Microsoft Office will fix the problem. You can simply do it by clicking the Update Options in the right above picture and select Update Now . Solution 6. Stop ClickToRunSvc Service. The above Case 4 usually happens when a computer wakes up from sleep or hibernation. If a Microsoft Office app is forever responding, the most likely culprit is the ClickToRunSvc service. Just disable it to solve the problem. Step 1. Right-click on Taskbar and choose Task Manager . Step 2. Switch to the Services tab. Step 3. Find and right-click on ClickToRunSvc . Then, select Stop . Then, you can try to open any office file to see whether the problem is solved or not. Solution 7. Repair Microsoft Office. No matter which Office application you are using, you may make use of the Microsoft repair feature to repair the Microsoft Office won't open error. Step 1. Search “control panel” in Windows Taskbar and open Windows Control Panel . Step 2. In Control Panel, select Uninstall Programs under the Programs section. Step 3. In the programs list, right-click on Microsoft Office and choose Change . Step 4. In the next pop-up new window, select either of the repair types ( Quick Repair or Online Repair ) and click Repair to start. Step 5. When the repair finishes, restart your PC. Finally, try to open your Microsoft Office apps to see whether you can open them or not. If not, it means your problem still exists. Then, move to the next solution. Solution 8. Uninstall Unused Microsoft Office Versions. Just like mentioned above, if you have more than one versions of Microsoft Office installed on your computer, you should uninstall the ones that you do not use or you do not use frequently. The reason is that keeping various versions of Office on your PC can result in problems like files opening with the wrong version of Office app like the above Case 2. Step 1. Go to Uninstall Programs section in Windows Control Panel. Step 2. In the Programs and Features window, within the list of apps under Uninstall or change a program , find the unnecessary Microsoft Office version, right-click on it and select Uninstall . Then, just follow the guidance to finish the uninstallation. Solution 9. Reinstall Microsoft Office. Many software problems may be solved by reinstallation. So as Microsoft Office won’t open Windows 10 . Just go to the official website of Office, download, and install your Office version. Solution 10. Troubleshoot Microsoft Office File Association. In this method, you need to rely on an official troubleshooting pack cabinet. Step 1. Download the program. Step 2. Click on the downloaded file to trigger the troubleshooting process. Step 3. In the pop-up window, click Next and follow the guide to deal with Microsoft Office File Association problem. Try to reopen your Office files and see whether you can open them or not. If not, continue with the following solutions. Solution 11. Manually Associate Files to the Correct Office Program. If the above automatic file association won’t work, then, you can manually set file association in Windows Settings. Step 1. In Windows 10, click Start in the bottom left corner and select Settings . Step 2. In the Windows Settings window, choose the Apps option. Step 3. On the Apps & Features screen, select Default apps tab in the left menu. Step 4. Scroll down to find “ Set defaults by app ” and click it. Step 5. On the next screen, find the problematic Microsoft Office app, click on it, and select Manage . Step 6. Then, find the file extension you failed to open and set its default app as the Office program. Just click on the current matched app and select the target Microsoft Office app. If there are more than one Office programs that won’t open, you just need to repeat the above steps. Solution 12. Open Microsoft Office in Safe Mode. Another method is to try to open Office files in computer safe mode. The following will take open a Word file in safe mode for example. Step 1. Open Windows Run box by pressing “ Windows + R ”. Step 2. Type “ winword /safe ” and press Enter . Step 3. Then, you will see the Word opens in safe mode. The following are the orders for opening other Office programs in Safe Mode via Run box. They are all based on Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2016 on Windows 10. Excel: excel /safe PowerPoint: powerpnt /safe Outlook: outlook /safe Access: msaccess /safe Publisher: mspub /safe OneNote: onenote /safe Visio: visio /safe. Solution 13. Disable Microsoft Office Add-ins. Sometimes, damaged add-ins may prevent your Office files from opening or opening without showing contents. So, disable or remove them will solve Microsoft Office won’t open problem. The following guide is based on Microsoft Word. Step 1. Launch the Word program. Step 2. Navigate to File > Options > Add-ins . Step 3. At the bottom of the Add-ins tab, select COM Add-ins in the drop-down menu and click Go… Step 4. In the COM Add-ins dialog, uncheck all add-ins and click OK to exist. Then, reopen your Word document to see the result. You can also uncheck one add-in at one time to figure out which add-in is the culprit. If you can’t locate the problematic add-in, it is possible that more than one add-ins together cause your Office files won’t launch. What is Microsoft Office File Validation Add-in? How to remove this feature from Office 2020? See this post to get answers to these questions. Solution 14. Update Windows. As we all know that Office and Windows are of the same Microsoft family. Microsoft regularly releases Office updates within Windows Update. Thus, if you can’t open your Office files and you are not up-to-date on your Windows, you may solve your problem by updating your Windows system. Also, maybe some outdated system programs are not compatible with your office apps, so they prevent you from opening your office files. Thus, update those system apps by update Windows will help. Solution 15. Uninstall Windows Update. If you encounter Microsoft Office won’t open issue after Windows update like described in Case 1 at the start of this article, it probably is the update that matters. Then, just uninstall the update is the fix. Step 1. In Windows Settings, continue to Update & Security . Step 2. In the default Windows Update tab, click “ View update history ”. Step 3. There, click Uninstall updates on the top. Step 4. In the Uninstall Updates window, right-click on the latest you have installed and select Uninstall . Follow the guide to finish the uninstallation. Solution 16. Repair Corrupted File System. Sometimes, the file system crash will also result in files not open. So, have a check at yours and repair the crashed file system. Step 1. Download and install a reliable tool that can repair the file system. Here, MiniTool Partition Wizard is recommended. Step 2. Launch the program. Right-click on the partition (volume) where the problematic files are located and select Check & fix detected errors . Step 3. Click Start to carry out the diagnosis. Solution 17. Remove Old Printer Drivers. A few users mention that having old printer drivers installed on the computer may also prevent the Office from working. If you have, just remove those drivers. You can find a way in this article. If you find that the Print Spooler keeps stopping and want to find some workable methods to solve the problem, then this post is what you need. solution 18. Scan Virus on Your Computer. There is also a chance that Microsoft Office won’t open due to attacks from viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware, trojan, hijack, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to run a full scan for those viruses relying on anti-virus software, such as Windows Defender, Avira, or Avast. If unfortunately, your files are corrupted or lost during the virus attack, you can try to recover them with a professional and powerful file recovery program like MiniTool Power Data Recovery. Solution 19. Post in Microsoft Office Community. If none of the above solutions work for you, you can go to the Microsoft Office community to find further solutions. Or, you may consider contacting the Microsoft Office support team for a method. Back up Microsoft Office Files by MiniTool ShadowMaker. Just like said above, open Office won’t open may be caused by ransomware, malware, spyware, etc. viruses. And, those viruses may destroy Microsoft Office files completely and make them can’t be recovered by any reliable recovery software. Then, what should you do? If you have a backup of those files that were created before the virus attack, you are lucky. You can restore those Microsoft Office files based on the backup. So, yes, to create a backup of important files is of great importance. Then, how to make a backup of computer files? Let’s hand it to a professional and reliable data backup tool called MiniTool ShadowMaker. To make use of this program, first of all, you need to download and install it on your PC. This process is free of charge. Step 1. Launch MiniTool ShadowMaker on your machine and click Keep Trial on its first screen. Step 2. On its second screen, switch to the Backup tab on the top menu. Step 3. In the Backup tab, click the Source module on the left to select the Microsoft Office files or the folder containing Microsoft Office files. Step 4. Click the Destination module on the right to select the backup target place. You can choose another local disk or external hard drive. Step 5. Then, you can review the backup task. If everything is right, just click Back up Now to start the process immediately. Wait until the backup task completes. The time it will take depends on how much data you set to back up. In general, it won’t take too long. The Microsoft Office 2019 for Windows and Mac has been launched since September 24, 2018. You can read this post to learn this new thing. Write at the End. I believe at least one of the above solutions will solve your Microsoft Office won’t open problem, for most of you. Of course, there are still other fixes that haven’t been listed in this article. If you are willing to, feel free to post them in the comment section. Thanks for your reading! Facebook Twitter Linkedin Reddit. ABOUT THE AUTHOR. Position: Columnist. Graduate from university in 2014 and step in work as a tech editor the same year. Writings involve mainly in hard disk management and computer data backup and recovery. Through the years of diving deep in computer technology, Helen has successfully helped thousands of users fixed their annoying problems. Personally, Helen loves poetry, sci-fi movies, sport and travel. And, she believes that all her life is the best arrangement from god.