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

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:

257592 Changes in file types and file association features in Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003

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:

322756 How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To configure Internet Explorer to open Office files in the appropriate Office program by editing the Windows registry, set the BrowserFlags DWORD value to a correct value 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 Office Excel 95 Worksheet                      Excel.Sheet.5
   Microsoft Office Excel 97-2003 Worksheet                 Excel.Sheet.8 
   Microsoft Office Excel 2007-2010 Worksheet               Excel.Sheet.12
   Microsoft Office Excel 2007-2010 Macro-Enabled Worksheet Excel.SheetMacroEnabled.12
   Microsoft Office Excel 2007-2010 Binary Worksheet        Excel.SheetBinaryMacroEnabled.12  
   Microsoft Office Word 95 Document                        Word.Document.6
   Microsoft Office Word 97-2003 Document                   Word.Document.8
   Microsoft Office Word 2007-2010 Document                 Word.Document.12
   Microsoft Office Word 2007-2010 Macro-Enabled Document   Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12
   Rich Text Format                                         Word.RTF.8
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 95 Presentation              PowerPoint.Show.7
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation         PowerPoint.Show.8
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007-2010 Macro-Enabled Presentation     PowerPoint.Show.12
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 97-2003 Slide Show           PowerPoint.Show.8
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007-2010 Slide Show         PowerPoint.Show.12
   Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007-2010 Macro-Enabled Slide Show     PowerPoint.ShowMacroEnabled.12
   Microsoft Excel 7.0 worksheet                                           Excel.Sheet.5
   Microsoft Excel 97 worksheetExcel.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, follow these steps:
   1. If the Office document is an Microsoft Office Excel document, add the following value for all Microsoft Office Excel subkeys except the Excel.Sheet.5 subkey:
      Value name: BrowserFlags
      Data type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 8
      
      For the Excel.Sheet.5 subkey, add the following value:
      Value name: BrowserFlags
      Data type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 9
      
   2. If the Office document is an Microsoft Office Word document or an Rich Text Format document, add the following value for all Microsoft Office Word subkeys except the Word.Document.12 subkey, the Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12 subkey and the Word.RTF.8 subkey.
      Value name: BrowserFlags
      Data type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 8
      
      For the Word.Document.12 subkey, the Word.DocumentMacroEnabled.12 subkey and the Word.RTF.8 subkey, add the following value:
      Value name: BrowserFlags
      Data type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 44(Decimal)
      
   3. If the Office document is an Microsoft Office PowerPoint document, add the following value for all subkeys except PowerPoint.SlideShow.12 and PowerPoint.SlideShowMacroEnabled.12.
      Value name: BrowserFlags
      Data type: REG_DWORD
      Value: 10(Decimal)
      
      For PowerPoint.SlideShow.12 and PowerPoint.SlideShowMacroEnabled.12, delete the BrowerFlags if it exists.
5. Click OK, and then quit Registry Editor.