IE cannot open Office documents from SharePoint 2013

This was a well known issue during the times of SharePoint 2007 or MOSS. Back then IE used to crash.

Opening Blank page

This time in SharePoint 2013, IE opens up with a blank page and has a text of

" ms-word:ofe|u|https:// "

in the beginning of the URL.

Possible solution

1. If you have any Microsoft 2013 products installed and not Office 2013, then remove “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation” from the 2013 product. This usually happens with Lync 2013 or Project 2013. You need to go to control panel and click on the installed product and click on “Change” next to uninstall to run the product customization and select “Add or remove features”. Then deselect “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation” and continue.

2. If you have SharePoint Designer 2013 installed, completely uninstall it. Even if you install it by deselecting the “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation” during the setup, it forcefully installs this and it might not work. So completely remove this.

Follow-up issue

Now since, Microsoft Foundation has been removed from some 2013 products, there might be some other things that might get broken in SharePoint.

For example, in my SharePoint sites, IE started crashing whenever I hover onto a contact name, which actually had a reference to the Lync integration. I have explained the resolution for this in my previous blog –https://deepinsharepoint.wordpress.com/2013/11/07/ie-crashes-when-hovered-over-contacts-in-sharepoint-2013/

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IE crashes when hovered over contacts in SharePoint 2013

I started getting this weird problem. Each time I move to a contact name in IE 10 from a SharePoint 2013 page, it crashed. After reopening some times, IE permanently crashes and this was not a good scene at all.

What I had done lately could be a reason why IE misbehaved. I had removed the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation part for Lync installation because my Office documents won’t open in IE. And this was the price I had to pay I guess.

The Fix: If you have Office 2013 installed, just go on repair mode in Control panel for that. In my case I just had Lync 2013 installed and I had to simply go and repair it. And after restarting the machine, everything turned back to normal. 🙂