Why do I have to use open with to open a word document

[Ed12]

When I try to open a 2007 word document on my desktop, it opens as notepad
and is unreadable. I have to go to "open with" and choose word. I would
like to be able to just click on the document and have it open in word.

It also happens quite often with Word attachments in Outlook.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Try this: Click Start | Run. Type

winword /r

and press Enter to re-register file associations in Word.