I was having this issue on my recently updated pc. when i double clicked on an excel file it would not run. tried various things mentioned in the forum. nothing worked.
i always got an error message - filename.xls is not a valid win32 application. thing is that office was looking for "excel office component" - whatever that is.
So I went to Control Panel>Programs>Default Programs.
Tried to change the default program for xls and xlsx files to excel, but it would not show up.
So I went to start and searched for excel.exe. that gave me the path to the actual file.
copied it down - went back to the control panel >programs/default programs > change and scrolled down to the file types, clicked on change > browse . and pasted the file path there.
problem solved. should work for the other office programs as well.
i always got an error message - filename.xls is not a valid win32 application. thing is that office was looking for "excel office component" - whatever that is.
So I went to Control Panel>Programs>Default Programs.
Tried to change the default program for xls and xlsx files to excel, but it would not show up.
So I went to start and searched for excel.exe. that gave me the path to the actual file.
copied it down - went back to the control panel >programs/default programs > change and scrolled down to the file types, clicked on change > browse . and pasted the file path there.
problem solved. should work for the other office programs as well.