When you try to preview Office documents in the File, Open dialog, an error is returned. The same document previews as expected in Windows Explorer or other Office applications.
Steps to repro:
- Open Word
- Go to File, Open
- Select a folder where there is a Word document
- On right, "show the Preview pane" selected (highlighted in red in the screenshot)
- On right of files listed, it says "select a file to preview"
- Select a file
Preview pane says "this file can't be previewed because of an error in the Microsoft Word previewer."
Note: Excel and Powerpoint are also affected.
This is a long standing bug. The solution: preview the file in Windows Explorer or in a different Office application.
For more information, see Error message when you try to preview a Word document, an Excel workbook, or a PowerPoint presentation in the Open dialog box: "This file can’t be previewed (MSKB)