Article ID: 922849 - Last Review: December 9, 2011 - Revision: 18.0
You receive an error message when you try to open a file type that was blocked by your registry policy settings in Word 2010, in Word 2007, or in Word 2003
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In Microsoft Office Word 2010, Microsoft Office Word 2007 or
Microsoft Office Word 2003, you try to open a file that was saved in a
Microsoft Word format. When you do this, the file does not open.
Additionally, you receive one of the following error messages:
You are attempting to open a file type that is blocked by
your registry policy setting.
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.
You are attempting to open a file
type File_Type that has been blocked by your File Block settings in the Trust
Center.
Note You may receive a
similar error message when you try to save a file. In this case, click the
following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Error message when you try to save a
document in Word 2007 or in Word 2003: "You are attempting to save a file that
is blocked by your registry policy
setting"
This issue may occur if one of the following conditions is true:
You try to open a file
that was saved in one of the following earlier Word formats. Word 2010 no
longer supports documents that were saved in the following Word formats:
Microsoft Word for
Windows 1.x
Microsoft Word for
Windows 2.x
Microsoft Word for
the Macintosh 4.x
Microsoft Word
for the Macintosh 5.x
Microsoft
Word 6.0 Binary Documents and Templates
Microsoft Word 95
Binary Documents and Templates
You try
to open a file that was saved in one of the following earlier Word formats.
Word 2007 no longer supports documents that were saved in the following Word
formats:
Microsoft Word
for Windows 1.x
Microsoft Word
for Windows 2.x
Microsoft Word
for the Macintosh 4.x
Microsoft
Word for the Macintosh
5.x
An
administrator has restricted the types of documents that you can open or save
in Word 2007 or in Word 2003. An administrator can set a registry key to
restrict this functionality.
For Word 2007, the registry key can be
set in the 2007 Office System Administrative Templates. For more information,
see the "Word 2007" subsection of the "More Information" section.
For
Word 2003, security update 934181 enables the administrator to block the
ability to save or to open files in Word 2003. For more information, see the
"Word 2003" subsection of the "More Information"
section.
To open files that are blocked by the registry, you can disable
the restriction on opening presentations that were blocked by the registry
settings of Word. To do this, use one of the following
methods.
Important This section, method,
or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However,
serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore,
make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up
the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a
problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the
registry, click the following article number to view the article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
How to back up and restore the registry
in Windows
To disable this restriction in Word 2007, change the value of the FileOpenBlock subkey.
To have us disable this restriction for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather enable Windows Installer logging yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.
To disable or enable the file restriction automatically, click
the Fix this problem link for Disable or
Enable restriction. Then click Run in the
File Download dialog box, and follow the
steps in this wizard.
Note These wizard may be in English only; however, the
automatic fix also works for other language versions of
Windows.
Note If you are not on the
computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive
or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem.
If
the FileOpenBlock subkey does not exist, you must create it. To do this, follow
these steps:
Select the
Security subkey.
On the
Edit menu, point to New, and then click
Key.
Type
FileOpenBlock, and then press ENTER.
After you select the subkey that is
specified in step 3, locate the DWORD value.
Note If this value does not exist, you must create it. To
do this, follow these steps:
On the Edit menu, point to
New, and then click DWORD
Value.
Type the DWORD value for which you want to
disable the restriction, and then press ENTER. For example, type
FilesBeforeVersion.
You may check for
the different DWORD values in the "More Information" section of this article
based on the version of Word that you are running. 9 For example, if
the opening of files that were saved in earlier file formats is restricted,
locate the "FilesBeforeVersion" DWORD value in the registry for the
FileOpenBlock subkey. When you change the value of "FilesBeforeVersion" from 1
to 0, you can open files that were saved in earlier file
formats.
Right-click the DWORD value that you want, and
then click Modify.
In the Value
data box, type 0, and then click
OK.
On the File menu,
click Exit to exit Registry
Editor.
For more information about how to disable this restriction in Word
2003, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:
938810
Information about certain file types that are blocked after you install Office
2003 Service Pack 3
Method 2:
Use a trusted location, or create an exempt location
To do this,
follow these steps, as appropriate for the version of Word that you are
running:
In Word 2010,
if you trust the file that you want to open, you can open that file even if the
file type is blocked by the registry. You can override the registry policy
settings by moving the file to a trusted location.
For more
information about how to create, to remove, or to change a trusted location for
files, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
In
Word 2007, if you trust the file that you want to open, you can open that file
even if the file type is blocked by the registry. You can override the registry
policy settings by moving the file to a trusted location.
For more
information about how to create, to remove, or to change a trusted location for
files, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
In Word 2003, there are no trusted locations. You can create an exempt location to override the registry policy settings. To create an exempt location, follow these steps:
Point
to New on the Edit menu, and then click
Key.
Type
OICEExemptions for the name of the key.
Point to New on the Edit
menu, and then click String Value.
Type a
string name, and then press ENTER. For example, type
ExemptDirectory.
Right-click the
string name that you typed in step 7, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type the path of
the directory that contains the file, and then click OK. For
example, if your document is in the C:\My Documents folder, type
C:\My Documents in the Value data
box.
Note You must create the
folder. Any subfolders are not automatically exempted. For any additional
folders that you would like to make exempt, repeat steps 6 to 9 by creating
string values such as "ExemptDirectory1," and
"ExemptDirectory2."
On the File menu,
click Exit to exit Registry
Editor.
You can download the Office 2010 Administrative Template files
(ADM, ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool from the Microsoft Download
Center at
This update provides updated Group Policy template
files to either allow an override of the files blocked by default or block
additional file types.
The opening of the file types listed below can
be controlled through File Block Settings.
Word 2007 and later Binary Documents and
Templates
Word 2003 Binary Documents and
Templates
Word 2003 and Plain XML Documents
Word XP Binary Documents and Templates
Word 2000
Binary Documents and Templates
Word 97 Binary Documents
and Templates
Word 95 Binary Documents and
Templates
Word 6.0 Binary Documents and
Templates
Word 2 and earlier Binary Documents and
Templates
Web Pages
RTF
Files
Plain Text Files
Legacy
Converters for Word Office
Open XML Converters for
Word
Office 2007
Contact
the system administrator to change the registry settings by changing the
policies. The '2007 Office system (SP2) Administrative Template files (ADM,
ADMX, ADML) and Office Customization Tool' can be downloaded from the Microsoft
Download Center at
This update provides updated Group Policy template files to either allow an
override of the files blocked by default or block additional file types.
The 'Block opening of files before version' Group Policy setting
provides a list of the file types that can be blocked. The file types are
listed in chronological order, and selecting one forces versions prior to that
version to be blocked (but not including the selected version). The Word
versions are listed below.
Word 1.x for Windows Word 4.x for
Macintosh Word 1.2 for Windows Japan Word 1.2 for Windows Korea Word
5.x for Macintosh Word 1.2 for Windows Taiwan Word 2.x for Windows
Word 2.x for Windows BiDi Word 2.x for Windows Japan Word 2.x for Windows
Korea Word 2.x for Windows Taiwan Word 6.0 for Windows Word 6.0 for
Macintosh Word 95 Released Word 95 Beta Word 97 for Windows Word 98 for
Macintosh Word 2001 for Macintosh Word X for Macintosh Word 2000 Word
2002 Word 2003 Word 2004 for Macintosh Word 2003 as saved by
Word 2007
The file type can only be selected if the 'Enabled' option
is selected to select a file type.
To restrict the kinds of files that you can open or save in Word 2010, an administrator can use the
2010 Office System Administrative Templates to configure the registry on the
client computer.
Notes
To download the 2010 Office
System Administrative Templates, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
For more specific
information about how to use settings to block the opening and saving of file
formats in the 2010 Office programs, visit the following Microsoft Web site,
and then see the "Group Policy overview for Office 2010" topic:
To restrict the types of files that you can
open or save in Word 2007, an administrator can use the 2007 Office System
Administrative Templates to configure the registry on the client
computer.
The following table contains the DWORD values that an
administrator can add to the registry to restrict certain file types by using
the FileOpenBlock subkey. Additionally, the table contains the corresponding
file types that are restricted.
Collapse this tableExpand this table
DWORD value
File types
that are restricted
OpenXmlFiles
.docx, .dotx, .docm,
.dotm, .xml (Word Flat Open XML)
All file formats that are
available by using a text
converter
TextFiles
.txt
InternalFiles
All
Word file types that have a non-RTM nFib value
FilesBeforeVersion
All Word files that have an nFib
value lower than the minimum nFib value as set by an
administrator
Notes
To download the 2007 Office
System Administrative Templates, visit the following Microsoft Web
site:
For more specific information about how to use settings to block the opening and saving of file formats in the 2007 Office programs, visit the following Microsoft Web site, and then see the "Enforce settings by using Group Policy in the 2007 Office system"
topic:
An administrator can restrict the types of
files that you can open or save in Word 2003. This ability was not provided in
Microsoft Office 2003 when it was originally released. To restrict the types of
files that can be opened or saved in Word 2003, install security update
934181.
For more information about security
update 934181, click the following article number to view the article in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Description of the security update for
Word 2003: May 8, 2007
To restrict the types of
files that you can open or save in Word 2003, an administrator can use one of
the following methods:
Use the updated Office 2003 Administrative Templates
to configure the registry on the client computer.
Modify
the registry by adding a registry key setting on the client
computer.
To download the Office 2003 Service Pack 3
Administrative Template (ADM), OPAs, and Explain Text Update, visit the
following Microsoft Web site: The following table contains the DWORD values that an administrator can add to the
registry to restrict certain file types by using the FileOpenBlock subkey.
Additionally, the table contains the corresponding file types that are
restricted.
If
the FileOpenBlock subkey does not exist, follow these steps to create it:
Click to select the
Security subkey.
On the
Edit menu, point to New, and then click
Key.
Type
FileOpenBlock, and then press
ENTER.
On the Edit menu,
point to New, and then click DWORD
Value.
Type the DWORD value that you want to
restrict, and then press ENTER. For example, type
BinaryFiles to restrict the opening of .doc and .dot
file types.
Right-click the DWORD value that you typed in
step 6, and then click Modify.
In the
Value data box, type 1, and then click
OK.
On the File menu,
click Exit to exit Registry
Editor.
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