Office 2010 Starter Edition: File type associations missing

After last month's Windows Updates the file type associations for Microsoft's Office 2010 Starter Edition went missing or at least changed into an orange blob that when clicked on claimed that the license key was invalid and you needed to purchase a new one. Quite a number of my customers had this problem as Office Starter was loaded by DELL on its Vostro systems. For a couple of weeks Microsoft refused to admit that there was a problem at all and it wasn't until 18th September that they released the 'fix' statement here.

Unfortunately, this fix did not work in all cases and takes a long time to apply, especially on a slow broadband connection. The simple, more effective solution was to change the file associations back using Start -> Default programs -> Associate a file type or protocol with a specific program. Just scroll through the list and change the Word and Excel file associations back to what they were.

I expected Microsoft to 'fix the fix' in October's Patch Tuesday but they didn't. Yet again Microsoft is loosing touch with its consumer roots.