This works for me.........
Place a shortcut to Excel.exe on the Desktop.
Place a *.txt file on the Desktop
Drag the *.txt file onto the Excel.exe shortcut icon and Excel opens with the
*.txt file
Also works with Word.
Perhaps you could try to re-register Excel and Word?
Start>Run "excel.exe /unregserver"(no quotes and note the space before the /
mark).
Then Start>Run "excel.exe /regserver"
You may have to enter your full path to excel.exe....in that case surround
with quotes as in..... "C:\mypath\to Excel\somewhere\excel.exe" /regserver
For Word...........
Start>Run "winword.exe /r" (no quotes and note the space before the /
mark). Again, you may have to enter the full path to winword.exe
Gord