Suddenly can't open Excel files from "My Computer/My Documents"

[Excel User]

I can open other types of files from "My Computer/My Documents" but recently
I started not being able to open Excel files that way. I can however still
open them from within Excel itself oddly enough. Any ideas what is causing
this?

 

[E-Coder]

Right click on any Excel file in My Documents and choose Open With ~ Choose
Program. Then select Excel from the list box and check the box at the bottom
that says to always use the selected program to open this kind of file.

 

[Excel User]

Thanks. I've now tried that but now I get an error message saying that
Windows cannot find the file, even though I tried different files that exist
in different locations, and can open those files still from within Excel
itself. Frustrating.

 

[Alex H]

Try going to the Excel options and clicking on the Advanced tab. Under the
General section, make sure the box next to 'Ignore other applications that
use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)' is unchecked. I had the same issue and
this fixed the problem.