Really Strange Excel Issue

I have a Windows 2003 domain with all win 2003 servers. My workstations are
windows 2000 with office xp installed. I have in the last week or so 3
different calls from users with the same problem. They created a spreadsheet
in excel with formulas and saved the file. When the went to open the file
again later on, the file was a word document, with a .doc extension. Word
opened the file fine of course without the formulas but if I try to open the
file in excel, excel tells me the file format is invalid. I then tried to
rename the extension to .xls, same error. Also tried opening the file in
word and saving as "filename.xls" and that didn't work.
Anyone have any clue as to what is going on? And more importantly is there
anyway of recovering the excel sheet?

MC,

Perhaps a user is opening them with Word and saving them. That doesn't
explain what happened to the original *.xls files, though.

There's a problem with Word where an xls file can be opened in Word, and
then saved. The user gets a "This document will be saved in Word format" as
you would expect. Unfortunately, it overwrites the xls file; it doesn't
change the extension to .doc. It can no longer be opened with Excel.
Formulas and other spreadsheet functionality are lost. This problem existed
at least through Word 2002, and at least as far back as Word 97. There has
been lost data and tears over that one, and it went on for a while. It
might still be going on with Word 2003, I don't know.
--
Earl Kiosterud
mvpearl omitthisword at verizon period net
-------------------------------------------

"MC" <MC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2C0077DB-DA08-41C5-9CE4-B5077F301160@microsoft.com...
>I have a Windows 2003 domain with all win 2003 servers. My workstations
>are
> windows 2000 with office xp installed. I have in the last week or so 3
> different calls from users with the same problem. They created a
> spreadsheet
> in excel with formulas and saved the file. When the went to open the file
> again later on, the file was a word document, with a .doc extension. Word
> opened the file fine of course without the formulas but if I try to open
> the
> file in excel, excel tells me the file format is invalid. I then tried to
> rename the extension to .xls, same error. Also tried opening the file in
> word and saving as "filename.xls" and that didn't work.
> Anyone have any clue as to what is going on? And more importantly is there
> anyway of recovering the excel sheet?