Can't retrieve XL documents

[DogMarine]

I have used MS Office Excel 2003 for many years without difficulty in XP. Suddenly I find I can't open many of my old documents. I get a message,"Microsoft Office (InfoPath2003) cannot open (the following file, etc.) A second message says, "The form contains XML that is not parsed: An invalid character was found in the content. Line 0, Position 0" Then I get the message "MS Office is not currently set as default." I complete the instructions that follow and am advised it is now corrected but I continue to get the same error messages. When I submitted this problem to the Microsoft help forum and contact pages the site posted, "This web site has disabled automatic filing for this forum.'' Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

[FDibbins]

Hi and welcome to the forum

I presume that you have not messed with any setting in excel, and that this happens with any workbook you try to open?

I dont have 2003 here at work (I do at home, will be there in a few hours), but there is an option to "repair" excel. Try running that utility (it's under 1 of the excel menu headings, cant remember which 1)

[DogMarine]

Thank you for your prompt response. To the best of my knowledge, I have not changed any settings in excel unless it was done inadvertently. All of my excel books refuse to open with the same messages. I tried your suggestion, it is in the "Help" menu listed as "Detect and Repair", but that didn't work. A puzzle - I can open a new excel workbook from the excel icon, enter data and save it and then retrieve it OK. It is shown in my documents file with an excel icon. All the files (workbooks?) I'm having trouble with open with a screen that is labeled "Microsoft InfoPath 2003" and are shown in my documents file with an InfoPath icon. I don't know how InfoPath got involved in this process? Maybe that has something to do with it and, if it does, I don't know how to fix it?