Opening excel in office 2010 and not office "starter"

When I double click on an .xls or .xlsx document, it defaults to open in Excel Starter. I have installed Office 2010, but the documents still open in Starter. I tried uninstalling Starter, but then nothing opens, I just get a whirling circle, and nothing happens. (Which I think is due to the DDE Launcher thing being uninstalled at the same time). I have also tried to "open with" and I select excel 2010, but it doesn't open.

To open in Excel 2010, I have to first open the program, then select file / open and navigate to the folder.

This is driving me nuts. I'd like to be able to open files in excel 2010, just by double clicking on them. I'm opening many, many files in the course of a working day, so efficiency is key. It can't be that complicated?

Anyone know their way around this?

Thanks

hmm it seems you may have had another instance of excel and probably upgraded?

also, did you check to see if excel is your default in opening these files?

Hi, thanks for responding.

Yes, I had office 2003, and recently upgraded to office 2010. (I had installed office Starter just before installing office 2010 too).

The problem is, when I go into the control panel, and asscociate the files to "Microsoft Excel" they don't open. The only way to get them to open on a double click, is to have them associated with the "Microsoft Application Virtualization DDE Launcher" (which defaults to open in Excel Starter). If I associate them with "Microsoft Excel", they don't open. The .xls files also have the option to associate them with "Office 2010" but when I select that and double click to open the file, it tells me I need to 'activate' or 'go online to purchase' the program! I have already installed it and entered my activation key.

On googling the issue, it seems this DDE Launcher is what Microsoft is using now to open xls and xlsx files in Excel 2010...uninstalling office starter seems to uninstall that too, so nothing opens!

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

Am I allowed to bump up to get a response?

Thanks :-)