i can not open any excel files on a double click - ignore other application that use dynamic data exchange is unchecked and when I do a search using the start - not only does the files not show as excel - even ones that I have saved as excel 2013 - but will only open a blank excel worksheet.  the word doc do open but do not show as a word icon on the "start" seach

Hi,
Please refer to this.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/307859
(This article is about Win.XP, but almost the same as Vista,7, or 8,.1)
good luck!

Hi,

According to your description, I have a couple of questions:

>>I have saved as excel 2013<< Was this issue occurred with the XLS format or XLSX format? Did you save it as XLSX format in Excel 2013?

If this issue occurred with XLS files, it might be caused by the file association broken. Please try to follow the article below to re-assign the XLS file association.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-hk/windows/change-default-programs#1TC=windows-7

Then, if this issue occurred with both of XLS and XLSX format, please try to repair Office. Please see the similar threads:
http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/685/t/241839.aspx

http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/685/t/69314.aspx

Hope it's helpful.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support