Microsoft Word restores all open documents when clicking on a .DOC file

windows-7 microsoft-word microsoft-word-2007

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You can fix this problem by blocking Word from using DDE to open files.

In the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open key:

Delete or rename the ddeexec sub-key

In the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\shell\Open\command key:

Delete or rename the command value (not to be confused with the command key.)
Edit the (Default) value and add "%1" (including quotes) at the end

This solves the problem for .docx files. If you also want to solve it for .doc files, do the same thing for Word.Document.8

Thanks to: Rafael's Within Windows which has detailed instructions.

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elgrego

In 2000 I co-founded Fog Creek Software, where we created lots of cool things like the FogBugz bug tracker, Trello, and Glitch. I also worked with Jeff Atwood to create Stack Overflow and served as CEO of Stack Overflow from 2010-2019. Today I serve as the chairman of the board for Stack Overflow, Glitch, and HASH. I served as a paratrooper in the Israeli army, graduated from Yale University in 1991, and spent time on the Excel team at Microsoft where I was the program manager responsible for the launch of VBA in Excel 5.0. I’ve also written four books, do a lot of Arduino stuff, and talk too much about Barry’s Bootcamp and Burning Man.

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

elgrego over 1 year

I tend to have a few Word documents that I keep open all the time, with notes for a long-running project. Normally they are all minimized.

The problem is that when I click on a different .doc or .docx file in Windows Explorer, even though the new document opens in its own window, the other, minimized Word documents get restored, too. Now I have several restored windows that I wanted to keep minimized.

I started noticing this problem on Windows 7, but I'm not sure if it's unique to Windows 7. I'm using Word 2007.
- Admin over 14 years
  
  I have almost the same behaviour in Win7 RC1 though only one of the minimised docs is restored. Similarly with Excel 2007, opening a spreadsheet in Explorer briefly displays a minimised spreadsheet which is then hidden by the newly opened one until that is closed, when it is left restored. Anyone know if this still happens with Win 7 RTM?
- Admin over 14 years
  
  Just boot into OS X - works fine there :P
- Admin about 4 years
  
  It is now year 2020 and Word has had this problem for 10 years.
YetAnotherRandomUser almost 6 years

Rafeal's new blog doesn't seem to have this, nor could I find mirrors anywhere. The Archive.org link is: web.archive.org/web/20120722030435/http://www.withinwindows.‌com/…
gloschtla about 5 years

I tested it with Word 365 in Windows 10, successfully.