HELP! Why have literally ALL my MS Office documents become "corrupted" today?

1. Calm down.
2. Reboot.
3. Re-evaluate.

Whenever I get a problem like that such that “everything” is going wrong, then it’s time to reboot first.

Another thing to look at is whether the files are your own (created by you on the same system), or are they from others, perhaps using newer versions of the software, or containing macros (for example) with library references that you don’t have.

I’m home from my meeting.

Thank you, @CWOTUS, but I don’t know how to make it any plainer. Quite literally every single MS Office file on my computer whether I made it or someone else is saying it’s corrupted.

I have a back-up hard drive. I’m going to try hooking that up to a laptop I have.

I can use the Internet without a problem. I can open MS Office files in Google without a problem.

I cannot open any MS Office files on the computer’s hard drive.

I just discovered I am able to open the documents using something called the “Microsoft Office Client Virtualization Handler.”

That is very good news.

I also discovered when I disconnected my external back up hard drive that it did not contain everything.

Reads like the program you want to open them with is corrupted, not the files themselves.

I would advise to uninstall and reinstall MS Office.

There were a number of updates last night to both windows and office. What version of each do you have?

For example Windows 7 and Office 2007.

There have been a lot of problems with this round of updates. I would say it’s a likely culprit.

Search google for your version and error message and then narrow it to the last couple of days, you may find a solution or enough folks to know that it’s not just you.

Thank you, @funkdaddy. I thought the update may have played a part since my computer updated today.

I am using Windows 7 and Office 2010.

I will search Google.

Thank you, ALL, especially @downtide. I uninstalled and reinstalled MS Office, and it works now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sept 10 was the second Tuesday of the month – the day Microsoft pushes its updates. Wednesday morning is the time when the problems arise. There will no doubt be a second update within a week to fix the fixes they sent out.

Whew @Hawaii_Jake! What a turrible feeling.

I’m glad I’m not the only one with this problem. I’m using win7 and MS Works Suite 2006. In addition my pictures in library are not same looking used to be. I used the recovery system and changed resolution. It did not working.