Why can't I open attachments in Outlook?

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My operating system is windows xp hm. I use outlook express. I can not open an attachment w/ .xls extension. The error message is no program associated w/ it to preform action. Create an association in the folder options in my control panel????

".xls" files are Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. You need to have Excel, or some other program installed that understands them.

While in Outlook, I can open Word documents just fine but when I try to open Excel documents, I get a message that it can't find the path. What is different? I made sure that the default file location in both Word and Excel are the same.

p.s. I am on a network and my network admin is of not help.

Which path can it not find: excel, or the document?

It can't find the "path to the file". This happens on all Excel docs in Outlook only. They open just fine if I save them to the hard drive and then open. I have made sure that in Explorer that I have told it to always open .xls docs with Excel.

OK, this is a long shot, but I have something for you to look at at least. In Windows Explorer:

Tools->Folder Options->File Types, scroll to and click on the "XLS" type, hit the "Advanced" button, click on "Open" (it should be bold), click on Edit. The Application is the full path to Excel with /e (in my case: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e ). Now, on my machine, "use dde" is also checked, and the DDE Message is

[open("%1")]

The quotes are important, because if the filename has special characters, like spaces, in them they could confuse it. Even if your filename doesn't, if the path to the temporary directory does (as in "Documents and settings") does, then the same applies.

You might compare the settings you found for ".xls" and ".doc" to see if there's an obvious difference on your machine.

Melissa,

I have a client with a similar problem with opening Excel from outlook and I found this solution from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1831733,00.asp

Hope it helps.

"Somehow a setting that tells Excel to ignore other applications got toggled on. The fix is simple. Go to Tools | Options, click on the General tab, and deselect that option."

Grace, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! That did the trick. And so easy!

I have Outlook attachments in Adobe format that when I click on it to Open it takes me to Word. Word does not open .pdf files very well. SO I saved the attachment and then clicked to open it in My Documents and again it opens in Word. Any ideas? Your comments don't mention the exact registry lines to append and the link is only on backing it up.

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