Corrupted/Infected Microsoft Office

[monkey]

I have Office 2003 installed on my PC running on Win XP SP3. A few days back I noticed that whenever I double clicked on any Word document I got garbled characters. When I right-clicked on the document and then clicked "Open with -> Microsoft Word" the file opened correctly. My all other files (.xls, .ppt, .txt etc.) were opening without any problem. I reinstalled Office without any luck. I also ran virus scan using KIS 2012 but it also didn't find anything. So I decided to uninstall Office 2003 and use OpenOffice instead. But on uninstalling Office 2003 I found that all my files still showed with Office icons. I ran registry cleaners assuming some Office files must still have remained but there was no change. When I clicked .xls file now it just gave me info on the type of file without asking for "Open with..". When I clicked .doc file it again opened showing garbled characters but now it was opening using Notepad. I, anyhow, went ahead installing OpenOffice but it had no effect on my system. All .xls, .doc and .ppt files still showed with Office 2003 icons. On clicking .xls file I still got just file info instead of it opening with OpenOffice Calc and my .doc files still show garbled characters and it still opens with Notepad instead of OpenOffice Writer. Whats wrong with my system? Is it badly infected? I used updated version of KIS 2012 rescue disk and it did not show any infection. Please help me!!

[thetechfreak]

Seems like a virus

Run an online antivirus scan from here-
HouseCall - Free Online Virus Scan - Trend Micro USA

Did you try cleaning TEMP? Use CCleaner for a Complete cleanup

CCleaner - Optimization and Cleaning - Free Download

[Vyom]

Originally Posted by monkey

A few days back I noticed that whenever I double clicked on any Word document I got garbled characters. When I right-clicked on the document and then clicked "Open with -> Microsoft Word" the file opened correctly.

That was just a file association problem. You just had to re establish the connection between the filetype and its application software, in this case which was .doc and MS-Word. To do that you just had to right click the file and click Open With, click Choose Program..., and then while selecting the MS-Word application, you had to select the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox.

[mithun_mrg]

@Op try to use system restore to a earlier working date and then re-install office & see

[Sara757]

Scan your system with updated Antivirus. And reinstall Microsoft Office. Hope it will solve your problem.