Loose File Association with Limited User Account with Office 2007

[fubdap]

I installed Enterprise Office 2007 on Wnxp sp2. The installation went
smoothly. I can see all my previous office data (word, excel, etc). In
windows explorer, when I click on word or excel, the appropriate application
launches. However, when I switch to my limited user account, I loose the
file association. All my word documents are in WordPad. From windows
explorer, when I click on them, it launches WordPad. I have tried the “open
with†option. It will open with word 2007, but it will not change the file
association. When I give the limited user account admin privileges,
everything is fine. But when I take away the admin privilege, I am back to
square one. I am guessing this will require registry setting, but I do not
know how to go about it. Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I installed Enterprise Office 2007 on Wnxp sp2. The installation went
smoothly. I can see all my previous office data (word, excel, etc).
In windows explorer, when I click on word or excel, the appropriate
application launches. However, when I switch to my limited user
account, I loose the file association. All my word documents are in
WordPad. From windows explorer, when I click on them, it launches
WordPad. I have tried the "open with" option. It will open with
word 2007, but it will not change the file association. When I give
the limited user account admin privileges, everything is fine. But
when I take away the admin privilege, I am back to square one. I am
guessing this will require registry setting, but I do not know how to
go about it. Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.

In the limited account, open the Start > Run box and enter

winword /r

(see http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ReRegisterWord.htm).

If that doesn't work, then the limited account doesn't have permission to
write to the necessary parts of the registry. The general procedure in the
Workaround section of http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884202 would be needed
to grant the permission temporarily. Not knowing the whole list of registry
keys that need to be changed by the registration command, I think you'll
have to give Full Control permission to access at least the entire
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE sections instead of the keys listed
in step 3. Run the command above instead of step 7, then remove the Full
Control permissions.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[fubdap]

Hi Jay,

Thanks for responding to my question. I followed the instructions you
provided. Unfortunately, it did not solve my problem. I still have Word
default to Wordpad whenever I logon with my limited user account. Do you
please have any other ideas for me? Thanks.

 

[Jay Freedman]

I can give you another path to try to change the associations, but if the
re-registration command didn't work then I won't be surprised if this one
doesn't work either.

Open Windows Explorer and click Tools > Folder Options > File Types. In the
list, select DOC. In the bottom part, where it says "Opens with" and
(probably) shows WordPad, click the Change button and choose Word 2007.
Repeat this for the other extensions (DOCM, DOCX, DOT, DOTM, DOTX)
associated with Word. Do the same for the Excel extensions and any other
Office formats you need.

If all that fails, I have one more question for you: Where did you get the
Enterprise edition, which is usually restricted to large accounts? Do you
have access to an IT help desk? Those folks often don't have a clue about
Office, but they should be knowledgeable about account permissions and may
be able to help from that end.

 

[fubdap]

Hi Jay,
Thanks for the alternate solution. Just as you predicted, it did not work.
When I logon with limited user account, my entire word docs have WordPad
icons and when I double click, it opens WordPad. I can only open them in
word if I go through word 2007. When I save them as either word 2007 or
2003, and exit word 2007, they end up with the WordPad icons. But as soon as
I give the limited account an admin privileges, I will get the word icon and
when I double click, it opens word 2007.

Per your question, I got the enterprise version through the Microsoft Home
Use Program (HUP). So this copy is for my home use. At home I generally use
the limited user account for my day to day computing activity.