office 97 on XP Problem saving. Document name only one letter. word excel access

Problem:

After installing Office 97 on Windows XP existing documents can be accessed and saved but any attempt to create and name a new document or navigate "open" or "browse" menus fail. They fail with a variety of messages but have in common that the new name is truncated to a single letter.

This problem seems to affect Word or any other Office 97 program
running on Windows XP for some reason.

I had this problem and fixed it this way.

I removed the "Windows 95 compatiblity" from the icon / shortcut
starting the office program.

I know this seems back to front but it worked for me.

To apply the fix:

1) Right click the icon / shortcut you use to start the program.
2) Click the "Compatibility" tag.
3) Clear (Uncheck) the "Run in Compatibility mode" box.

Repeat this for all the Office 97 icons / shortcuts.

Hope this works for you.