I am suddenly unable to open some of my older Word files (say, a couple years or older). I get an error message that says "Word cannot open the document: user does not have access privileges." It is my computer, I am the administrator user, and there have never been any other users registered on the computer than me. Some of the files which I am now unable to open I have been able to open as recently as a few months ago, although they were created several years ago. Files that have been more recently created will open normally. Does anyone know why this would be and how i fix it? Thank you!

BTW, I have Office Starter 2010, Windows 7.

.doc format?

How long have you been using Word 2010?
[Edit: start with Paul (Macropod)'s post. He knows more than I do about this.]

Evidently those files have had their access permissions screwed up. You should be able to overcome that by copying them to a FAT32-formatted drive (e.g. a typical USB thumb drive), then copying them back to your HDD.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Note that many people in this forum have repeated the advice "don't try and work with Word files when they're on a USB stick – only work with files on your hard drive …" so follow Macropod's advice to the letter ;-}

Macropod;
Your suggestion worked!! I have an external hard drive. I copied an inaccessible file to the external drive, deleted it from the computer, then copied it back and it opened. Thank you!