Microsoft Word documents not working?

Recently several of my Microsoft Word documents have not been able to be opened. Their icons on my My Documents folder and such have become semi-transparent and their names have been replaced with other keys (for example, 'Evolution' is now '~$olution'). They cannot be opened and if so, they are opened as word documents with little squares instead of letters.

I have a feeling this might have been caused by my upgrade of Windows Media Player but I can't be sure.

What is the source of the problem and how can I fix it?

Microsoft Word documents not working?matchless

Those files aren't your Word documents, but are auxiliary files associated with them. They usually go away when you close the document or exit Word. If you have any files with the .wbk file extension, those are the previous version of that file and should be useable in Word. Change the extension from .wbk to .doc to keep the naming correct.

Good luck.

Microsoft Word documents not working?norton 2008

Download the word viewer seperately and C if U can view in it. It may B Ur Word sftwr.
right click on the word file name

if there is not doc extension rename it with .doc extension

Try to open it with word, or wordpad, notepad, openoffice,...
have you installed SP2 ?
Sounds like a virus got you. Go to www.trendmicro.com and run Housecall.