How to Fix ‘Word isn’t Your Default Program for Viewing and Editing Docs’

If you’re getting an error message that says “Word isn’t your default program for viewing and editing docs,” it’s usually because you have more than one word processing program installed on your computer. To fix this, you need to set Word as your default program. Here’s how:

How to Fix ‘Word isn’t Your Default Program for Viewing and Editing Docs’

What is the problem?

If you’re seeing the error message “Word isn’t your default program for viewing and editing docs,” it means that your computer is not currently set up to use Microsoft Word as its default program for opening and editing files with the .doc or .docx file extension. This can be a problem if you need to open and edit Word documents on a regular basis.

There are a few potential causes for this problem. One possibility is that you may have recently installed a different word processing program that has set itself as the default program for opening .doc and .docx files. Another possibility is that your computer’s registry may have become corrupted, which can sometimes happen after a Windows update.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can try to fix this problem. First, you can try resetting your default programs. To do this in Windows 10, go to the Start menu and type “default programs.” Then, click on the “Set your default programs” option.

Scroll down the list of programs until you find Microsoft Word. Select it and then click on the “Set this program as default” button. You may also need to click on the “OK” button to save your changes.

If resetting your default programs doesn’t work, you can try repairing your registry. This is a more advanced solution and should only be attempted if you’re comfortable making changes to your registry. To do this, you’ll need to download and run a registry cleaner program.

There are a lot of different registry cleaner programs available, so it’s important to choose one that is reputable and that you trust. Once you’ve downloaded and installed a registry cleaner, run it and follow the prompts to scan your registry for errors.

Once the scan is complete, the registry cleaner will show you a list of any errors that it found. You can then choose to fix all of the errors or just some of them. Once you’ve fixed the errors, restart your computer and see if the problem has been resolved.

How to fix it?

If you’re opening a .docx file in Word for the first time, you may see a message that says Word is not your default program for viewing and editing docs. If you see this message, it means that your computer is not currently configured to open .docx files in Word by default.

There are a few different ways to fix this problem:

1. The easiest way is to simply right-click on the .docx file and choose “Open with > Microsoft Word.” This will cause Word to open the file and set itself as the default program for opening .docx files going forward.

2. Another option is to open Word first, then go to File > Open and browse for the .docx file you want to open. This will also set Word as the default program for opening .docx files.

3. Finally, you can change the default program for opening .docx files by going to Control Panel > Default Programs > Set Your Default Programs. Select Microsoft Word from the list of programs and click “Set this program as default.”

Conclusion

If you’re still having trouble after following the steps above, your computer may be having a more serious problem. You may need to reinstall Word, or even your entire operating system. Hopefully, this is not the case and you were able to fix the issue with one of the methods above.

Reader questions/comments

If you’re having trouble making Word your default program for viewing and editing docs, there are a few things you can try.

First, make sure that Word is installed on your computer. If it’s not, you can download it from Microsoft’s website.

Once you’ve confirmed that Word is installed, open the program and go to the File menu. From there, select “Options.” In the options menu, select “General” and then scroll down to the “Default File Format” section. Make sure that the “MS Word 97-2003 Document” option is selected.

If that doesn’t work, you can also try changing your default programs in Windows. To do that, go to the Start menu and search for “default programs.” Select the “Default Programs” option and then click on “Set your default programs.” Find Microsoft Word in the list of programs and click on “Set this program as default.”

Hopefully one of these methods will work for you and you’ll be able to use Word as your default program for viewing and editing docs.