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#1
Problems with right-click menu after Windows 7 reinstall
I have had to reinstall Windows 5 times this year and I've only had this new PC since last December. There have been various issues that have made this necessary, but nothing has changed anything with the right-click menu until this last time.
I use Microsoft Office 2000 Professional with the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint File Formats. Until this most recent OS reinstall, I could right-click on the Desktop or an open folder and create any new MS Office file by choosing "New" from the right-click menu and then selecting Word, Excel, or whatever. After this most recent OS reinstall, Word is missing from that list of applications.
There is one thing I did prior to installing MS Office after reinstalling Windows this time that I didn't do with the earlier Windows 7 clean installs: There was a Word file that I needed to see but I didn't have Office installed yet, so I used WordPad to open the file. As a result (because I neglected to choose otherwise), WordPad became the default application for files with the .doc file extension. I tried removing the file association for .DOC files and then uninstalling and reinstalling Office, but I still have the same problem - Word does not appear in the right-click menu for creating new documents.
There is another thing that seems trivial but I should probably mention it anyway. After I reinstalled Office, Word became the default application for the .doc files but the appearance of the Word icon has changed from what it looked like prior to this last Windows reinstall. Instead of a blue "W" the same size as the green "X" on Excel documents, the .doc files on my PC now have a very small blue "W" in the middle of the icon. The Excel icons look the same as always.
As I said, that issue seems trivial but it is another thing that has changed with Word following the latest OS reinstall. The main issue, and the issue that is causing the greatest inconvenience, is the fact that I can no longer create a new Word file using the right-click menu.
Any advice that might restore Word to the right-click menu will be much appreciated. Thanks!