From: Jay Freedman on
First try the simple fix: Click the Windows Start menu and choose Run, type
in

winword /r

(note the space before the slash), and click OK. That will rewrite Word's
registry entries and may fix the problem.

If that doesn't help, open Windows Explorer (the file manager). Click Tools
> Folder Options > File Types. Find and click on the DOC extension. If you
see an Advanced button near the bottom of the dialog, click it. If instead
you see a Restore button, click that and it will change to Advanced, then
click it again. In the next dialog, click on Open in the action list and
click the Set Default button. Click OK in each dialog.

Note that Open should be the default action for documents, but New should be
the default action for templates.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

Danish.inc wrote:
> Every time I open a file from a folder by double-clicking it opens as
> "New" and I'm unable to save it over the same file. In order to open
> it I have to right-click and click "open". The "New" opention from
> the drop down menu is also bolded. How do I change the default to
> "open" not "open new" ?