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How to change file association of DOC files to Word 2003
Hello
For the past few years, my Windows opened a DOC/DOCX/RTF file in Word 2003 instead of e.g. Word 2016 (when I double-clicked a DOC/DOCX/RTF file). Every 2-3 weeks Windows would change the file association of DOC/DOCX/RTF files to Word 2016, but when I run Word 2003 manually (or use Detect and Repair), the file associations would change to Word 2003 again.
Today, however, this no longer works. When I run Word 2003, it runs fine (and appears to work fine) but I get an error message "Microsoft Office Word 11.0 - An error occurred and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Please run Setup and select "Repair..." to restore this application.".
The same applied to Excel 2003 until now. Now, Excel 2003 still works, but gives an error message when I run it, "Microsoft Excel - One of your object libraries (stdole32.tlb) is missing or damaged. Please run Setup to install it." and it actually runs the installer each time I start Excel, but the installer simply exits when the progress bar gets halfway.
Repairing (and reinstalling) Office 2003 doesn't progress past about the halfway mark and then the repair/reinstall dialog mysteriously exits. Also, when I try to use Detect and Repair in Word, Malwarebytes tells me there's malware in the TEMP folder (but disabling Malwarebytes doesn't make the repair process work). I also tried disabling the Office Source Engine service. Please note, this has nothing to do with the "Compatibility Pack" -- reinstalling it doesn't affect the file associations.
There is a registry hack for disabling the error message, but what I really want is for DOC/DOCX/RTF files to open in Word 2003 by default.
This brings me to ask a question that I have had for over a decade: how to convince Windows that I want to open DOC/DOCX/RTF files in Word 2003 when I double-click it.
(By the way, I recall having a similar problem with Adobe Acrobat Reader many years ago -- I had both version 5 and version 6 installed, and try as I might I was unable to get Windows to use version 5 for PDF files, and I always had to run version 5 manually and open files using drag-an-drop (as I'm now forced to do with DOC/DOCX/RTF files).)
Do you know what causes this error message (and how to fix it)? or
Do you know of surefire way to make DOC/DOCX/RTF files open in Word 2003 by default?
Thanks
Samuel
(Using Windows 10 Home)
Last edited by ugcheleuce; 05 May 2020 at 01:51.