Opening Lotus Worksheets (.wk1) in Excel 2003 SP3

If you have recently applied the service pack 3 patch sent out by Microsoft, then you may not be able to open Lotus worksheets that were previously accessible. Service pack 3 introduced a restriction on opening these file types without creating a setting for it in the registry. If you try to open a .wk1 file extension you may have received the following error message:

You are attempting to open a file type that is blocked by your registry policy setting.

The fix for this is simple. (but shouldn’t be necessary! -Microsoft-)
1. Click Start > Run and Type Regedit > Press Enter
2. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileOpenBlock
3. If FileOpenBlock does not exists you will need to create it by highlighting the Security subkey and on the Edit menu, selecting New > Key
4. Type FileOpenBlock and Press Enter
5. Point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
6. Type the DWORD name that you want to restrict, and then press ENTER. In this case type LotusandQuattroFiles
7. Right-click the DWORD name that you typed in step 6, and then click Modify.
8. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
9. On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

By adding a DWORD value of 0 for the LotusandQuattroFiles name, you are forcing acceptance of those file types in MS Excel. If you want to restrict those file types in the future, simply change the DWORD value to 1.

The following table contains the DWORD names that an administrator can add to the registry to restrict certain file types by using the FileOpenBlock subkey. Additionally, the table contains the corresponding file types that are restricted.

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