[Fixed] Windows Explorer Word Double Click Not Opening

Why is Windows Explorer Word double click not opening?

Windows Explorer (File Explorer) is a file manager tool included in Microsoft Windows versions beginning with Windows 95. It offers a graphical user interface for navigating file systems. It is also the operating system component that displays numerous user interface components on the screen, such as the taskbar and desktop.

Users can access Word files in Windows Explorer by double-clicking the target files to open Microsoft Word which is a word-processing application allowing users to create, edit, change, save, share, or distribute Word documents to others.

Both truly are highly user-friendly tools allowing anyone to utilize them with little difficulty. Yet, some people meet annoying problems, one of them is "Windows Explorer Word double click not opening". And some may also receive an error message stating, "There is no software associated with the document." Others may receive notifications that their files have been deleted.

Why can't I open my file? Some users may be quite confused about this situation. There is no exact reason that makes you can't open files from File Explorer, but some possible causes can be taken into consideration:

6 ways to fix Windows Explorer Word double click not opening

Although there are no specific reasons for Windows 10 File Explorer double click not working, the solutions are various. In this part, we’ll show you how to fix Windows Explorer Word double click not opening issue.

Way 1. Repair the Office program

If you can't open Word documents by double-clicking them or if they open in the wrong software, you may have a file association issue. This problem might also occur after a Windows upgrade. So don't worry; you can easily block Windows 10 updates via the registry.

Step 1. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features > find the malfunctioned Word or any Micro office program > right-click it > Change.

Step 2. Choose Quick Repair > Repair.

Way 2. Change Folder Options

If you find that double-click won’t open all files, you can change Folder Options to have a try.

Step 1. File Explorer/This PC > View > Options

Step 2. Change folder and search options > tick Double-click to open an item (single-click to select) under Click items as follows.

Way 3. Change mouse settings

Incorrect settings are the root of many issues. If you are experiencing problems with double-clicking to open folders, please first verify the setting of the mouse light double-click to open folders. If it is inaccurate, please follow the procedures below to rectify it.

Step 1. Use Windows + E keys to open the Windows File Explorer and select a folder at random.

Step 2. Select View at the top, and then click the Folder Options.

Step 3. In the Folder Options window, make sure you are currently in the General tab and select the Double-click to open an item (single-click to select) option, then click the OK button to save your changes.

Way 4. Change Mouse Properties

According to feedback, you could also check if the mouse settings are proper and try to fix the Windows Explorer Word double click not opening issue.

Step 1. Start Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers > find your mouse > right-click on it > Mouse settings.

Step 2. Under Buttons > check the Double-click speed > adjust the speed according to your preferences.

Way 5. Update the mouse driver

If some operations change the mouse driver’s settings, you also can’t open files from File Explorer.

Step 1. Right-click the Start menu > Device Manager

Step 2. Find the Mice and other pointing devices > choose the mouse driver > Update driver.

Way 6. Recover lost Word files

If you access your Word files using shortcuts and see the message "The object has been modified or moved," you will be unable to read Word documents, regardless of whether the file was destroyed by accident or as a result of an unknown system modification.

To fix this problem, you can ask help for a data recovery tool. Here, we recommend you AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, a disk and drive manager for Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7/XP users. In this tool, Users can employ the “File Recover” function to get those deleted files back. This software supports users to recover data from an HDD, SSD, USB, or SD card which means you can retrieve files in different formats, including Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, etc.

More importantly, the operation is very simple for all users. You can easily recover your files with a few clicks on your mouse.

Step 1. Install and launch this tool. In the main interface, click "Recover" > "Recover Data" at the top toolbar.

Step 2. The tool will run the recovery gadget. Select the source drive where the Word docs were saved > Start Scan.     

Step 3. Search wanted Word file by filenames, extensions, Path, Type, Date modified, etc.

Step 4. Go to Deleted files, navigate to the original location of the Word files, and select the Word docs, and click Recover x files.

Then wait for a while, the tool will find your lost files.

Tip: AOMEI Partition Assistant can also recover lost partitions from disk and USB.

To sum up

Windows explorer word double click not opening error is not a serious issue but users can't open files from File Explorer and can’t modify the files in File Explorer. Besides this problem, some users also find File Explorer not responding problem on Windows Explorer. If you confront such glitches, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant to fix them.

This practical tool has many handy functions like disk cloning, MBR/GPT data-safe conversion, OS migration, App Mover, and so on. In addition, you can choose the Server Edition to efficiently manage your Windows Server PCs.