Peter Hinchley

I received a call yesterday from a user that was unable to open Microsoft Word documents from Internet Explorer. When the user clicked on a link to a Word document, a dialog was displayed asking if they wanted to open or save the document. If the user saved the document, they were then able to open it; however, if they attempted to open the document directly from Internet Explorer, the browser would hang, and Microsoft Word would not be displayed.

The issue did not affect other document types (e.g. Excel spreadsheets).

I confirmed that upon clicking the link, the Microsoft Word executable, winword.exe, was started, but not visible (it was listed as an active process in Task Manager), and a temporary .doc file of zero size was created in the Content.MSO directory.

After considerable investigation, low level debugging, and trial and error, I discovered the root cause of the issue was a setting in Microsoft Word called "Allow background open of web pages".

To disable the setting:

1. Start Microsoft Word 2007.
2. Click the Office button.
3. Click Word Options.
4. Select Advanced.
5. Scroll down to the General section.
6. Clear the Allow background open of web pages option.

This option is disabled by default, but when enabled, permits Word to open web pages in the background when clicking a hyperlink within a document. Unfortunately, it seems the option also has unintended consequences, preventing Word from opening documents that are accessed as links from the browser. Clearing the option resolves the issue.