How to configure Internet Explorer to open Office documents in the appropriate Office program instead of in Internet Explorer

When you click an HTML link to a Microsoft Office file (such as a Microsoft Word or Excel document), Internet Explorer may open the file in Internet Explorer, instead of opening the file in the appropriate Office program.

This behavior may occur if Internet Explorer is configured to host documents for Office programs that are installed on the computer. By default, Internet Explorer is configured to host documents for Office programs.

To configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program instead of in Internet Explorer, use one of the following methods.

Note These methods configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program for all users."

Method 1: Use the Folder Options tool

Note If you are running Windows NT 4.0, you may not be able to use the following procedure to configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program. If you are running Windows NT 4.0, use Method 2.

Note If you are running Terminal Server on Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003, you may not be able to click Advanced to open the Edit File Type dialog box in step 4 of this procedure. This issue occurs if the NoFileAssociate policy is enabled. Enabling this policy prevents users (including administrators) from changing file type associations for all users. For additional information about this behavior, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program by using the Folder Options tool:

1. Open My Computer.
2. On the Tools menu (or the View menu), click Folder Options (or click Options).
3. Click the File Types tab.
4. In the Registered file types list, click the specific Office document type (for example, Microsoft Excel Worksheet), and then click Advanced (or click Edit).
5. In the Edit File Type dialog box, click to clear the Browse in same window check box (or click to clear the Open Web documents in place check box).
6. Click OK.

Method 2: Edit the Windows Registry

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:
To configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program by editing the Windows registry, set the BrowserFlags DWORD value to 8 (or 9 for Microsoft Excel worksheets) for the appropriate document type. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2. Locate and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes
3. Locate the subkey for the specific Office document type. The following table lists the subkeys for several common Office document types.

   Document Type                                Subkey
   ----------------------------------------------------------------
   Microsoft Excel 7.0 worksheet                Excel.Sheet.5
   Microsoft Excel 97 worksheet                 Excel.Sheet.8
   Microsoft Excel 2000 worksheet               Excel.Sheet.8
   Microsoft Word 7.0 document                  Word.Document.6
   Microsoft Word 97 document                   Word.Document.8
   Microsoft Word 2000 document                 Word.Document.8
   Microsoft Project 98 project                 MSProject.Project.8
   Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 document           PowerPoint.Show.8
   						

   To locate the subkey for a document type that is not included in this table, find the subkey for the extension that is associated with the document type. The (default) value for that subkey contains the name of the subkey for that document type. For example, the .xls extension is associated with Excel worksheets. Under the .xls subkey, the (default) value contains the string "Excel.Sheet.5." Therefore, the subkey for the Microsoft Excel Worksheet document type is the following subkey:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Excel.Sheet.5
4. After you identify the subkey for the specific Office document type, add the following value for all subkeys except Excel.Sheet.5:
   Value name: BrowserFlags
   Data type: REG_DWORD
   Value: 8
   For Excel.Sheet.5, add the following value:
   Value name: BrowserFlags
   Data type: REG_DWORD
   Value: 9
5. Click OK, and then quit Registry Editor.

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 927009