A few days ago I was planning on going through some of my old office files and deleting out any files that were out dated, or I did not need anymore. But every time I tried to open a file I received this nice error from Office 2003 & 2007 saying

You are attempting to open a file type that is blocked by your registry policy setting.

And

You are attempting to open a file that was created in an earlier version of Microsoft Office. This file type is blocked from opening in this version by your registry policy setting.

So after trying to open up two files and receiving this error, I head over to Google to do some research, and see what is causing this error. After a little while of looking around, I find a Microsoft page explaining how to fix it. The fix involves several registry changes to stop Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint from producing this error.

Well to make life easier for the next person that has this error message, and to avoid having to play around in the registry, which can cause some serious problems, I decided to make a registry patch that you just open up, and it will automatically add all the necessary registry entries in a few seconds for you.

Note: Make sure you have Microsoft Office closed before you open the file

Installation

1. Download the file for your Office version, and then open the downloaded file.
2. When asked if you are sure if you want to add the information, click yes.
3. Now you will no longer receive the error message about opening up documents in office.

Download Office Registry Fix -

Office 2003 Fix

Office 2007 Fix
 

If your security settings do not allow you to download .reg files, here is the file in Zip format.

Office 2003 Fix - Zip File

Office 2007 Fix - Zip File

These registry fixes are in reference to Microsoft Help & Support website,  Article - You receive an error message when you try to open a file type that was blocked by your registry policy settings in….

Microsoft Word -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922849/

Microsoft Excel

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922848/

Microsoft Powerpoint

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922847/