For sometime when I click on the Excel icon in the Taskbar or with any file, I first get the message, “Unable to Read File.” When I click OK, I get this same message each time:
“Excel cannot open the file ‘~$Credit Card Template.xltx’ because the file format or the file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file.”
I click OK and the file I want opens. However, no file with "Credit Card Template" in its name now exists on my Windows 7 PC. Some time ago, there was either an xls and/or xlsx file with that name but it/they are long gone.

I first ran the Repair procedure on MS Office. I ran the MS Security Scanner program and it reported no problems. Finally I completely uninstalled Office 2010 and reinstalled it – to no avail.

Thankfully, I do get to my Excel files. But it requires two additional clicks that are annoying.

Any suggestions?

When you reinstalled Office 2010 did you install it back to the default file location again or did you change the new installations folder name?

It sounds as though the ~$Credit Card Template.xltx file was setup as your default template to startup and now it's been deleted that is causing an issue.

TrainingLady, thanks for your quick response.

First, although I named the file as a template, it did not have an extension with a "t". [I was not familiar with that extension variation until I encountered this problem.] It was probably xls when originally set up in Office 2003, and maybe converted to xlsx when I changed from XP to Win7 and Office 2010.

Second, after I Uninstalled Office 2010 in my attempt to correct this problem, I used the MS website to Reinstall with the Product Key. I presume it was to the default location.

If it ever existed, is the xltx file hidden? Would it help if I could retrieve the original Credit Card Template.xxx files from a backup?

At ExcelForum.com, I was able to get help and the answer. The CC Template.xltx file was buried in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Exce l\XLSTART.

How it got there and how it got that entension I will never know. But when it was removed tExcel returned to normal.