Problem opening .docx files in 2007

[college.techie]

I received the following e-mail from my English Professor.

I don't know why Word 2007 is saving the paper files as zipped,
compressed files, but I have had about 5 papers that came in that way. They
are not .docx files, and I don't know why they are not. I have not had that
particular problem with Word 2007; whatever the cause, the result is a file
that opens into about 4 segments, none of which appear to be the paper.

When they were submitted, according to the students (including me), they
were .docx files. I assume she would have mentioned an error message. Any
ideas?

P.S. Submission system is through Blackboard software, not e-mail, though I
don't think it would be causing this.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Well as you are probably aware, docx files comprise several files zipped
together and given the docx extension. If you manually change the extension
from docx to zip, then open the files in a ZIP utility such as WinZip, you
will see all the component files. My guess is that there is some nasty
incompatible AV checker which is seeing docx files as a zip file and this is
changing the extension to zip.

You can test if this is the case by taking one of the zip files and manually
changing the extension back into docx and it should be recognized and open
correctly in Word 2007.

 

[Terry Farrell]

One other possibility: if you are opening these by double-clicking the docx
which is opening the Unzipper, make sure that docx hasn't be registered as a
zip file instead of a Word file.

Terry