Problem with open doc files in ms

Hello,

I have several .doc files with .xls files (both 97-2003 versions) embedded. When I open the .doc file in Word 2010 and try to open the .xls file I get the following error message: "Microsoft Word can't start the application required to open this object. An error occured and this feature is no longer functioning properly. Would you like to repair this feature now?" When I try to repair the feature it fails and I still cannot open the .xls. If anyone has a fix for this then I'm set. I also extracted the .xls files from the .doc file by Saved the .doc as a .docx Changed the .docx. file extension to .zip Opened the .zip and extracted the .xls files in the word/embeddings folder When I open the .xls in Excel 2010, the results are mixed and not consistent. Some files open and I can edit/save them. Most files don't open. Some files open only when a second file is opened. Some files that open are in Protected View mode and when I try to turn off Protected View it crashes Excel. When I view the files in Windows Explorer, they don't have date created or date modified time stamps. It's only when I attempt to open the file that the date modified time stamp shows up. If the file doesn't open all the way and I close Excel, the date modified stamp goes away (not sure if this has any bearing on anything). Looking for tricks/tips/help support. Anything is appreciated.