Office documents may error when opened after a Windows 10 upgrade

If you have upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, you may find that some of your Office 2013 documents result in errors when you try to open them in protected view using a Click-to-Run install of Office. Protected View can occur when opening files from locations that may pose a threat such as Outlook or the internet.

Errors:

  • Excel: "This file is corrupt and cannot be opened"
  • Word: "Word experienced an error trying to open the file"
  • PowerPoint: "Sorry, PowerPoint can't read <file name>"

For more on Protected View, refer to https://support.office.com/en-us/article/What-is-Protected-View-d6f09ac7-e6b9-4495-8e43-2bbcdbcb6653?CTT=1&CorrelationId=e345befc-508c-4b7d-9e6e-1ca7115fed91&ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

 

This issue is being investigated. The KB article below includes steps to resolve the issue:

Error opening Office documents after upgrading to Windows 10
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086786

 

Important Notes:

You may have seen forum posts or third-party content that recommend disabling or bypassing Protected View to prevent this issue. We strongly discourage this step as a resolution.

This issue has not occurred with MSI Office installs or with upgrades from Windows 8.1.

Additionally, if your files are blocked but you are getting a Windows Security type of message, check out this blog as a possibility:

Blocked Access to files with Windows 10
https://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/archive/2015/08/19/blocked-access-to-files-with-windows-10.aspx