Excel and IE7 problem

I have recently reloaded windows. In the process the following problem has occurred.

I download some Spanish study material from the following site. jjonz.us/SpanishDestinos. The "Scramble" files at the bottom of the page are Excel files.

If I click on these files the "open, save, cancel" window opens. Then if I click on open I get a window "verifying blahblah(filename).xls" with a running green line through the center (like itis trying to load this file to a temp location). Then I get a warning msg that windows cannot find blahblah.xls in a specified temp location.

If I open Excel FIRST, then click on a link, the selected file opens.

Before reloading windows, I could just click on a file and explorer would open excel and the appropriate file.

Why won't explorer automatically open excel to read the spreadsheet?

Sorry if I made this sound confusing.

Thanks for any help.

jj

Solution
Ran a fix on my office installation and problem solved itself/


jj