Why can't I open any MS Office file from within the MY DOCS folder?  I
can open these files when I open the applilcation first then go to
FILE/OPEN/and then navigate to the location of the file.  I can move
the file to the desktop and still get the same results.  I have
removed and reinstalled MS Office 2000, even installed MS Office 2003.
 Spy Bot, Ad-aware, Trend Micro, MCAfee and other tools have resulted
in nothing at all.  I CAN open the files if I boot up in SAFE Mode.  I
have tried going to START/RUN/MSCONFIG/SERVICES AND UNCHECKING all
except MS files. Same Result.

I would check two things as follows.

(a) Right Click on Office Documents you are referring to and click
"Open With", see which application they are associated with. Confirm
whether correct or not. (for e.g. file.doc should be associated with
microsoft word and so on for Excel, Access etc. chamge if required)

(b) The extention(s) of you documents (excel --> xls, word --> doc
etc.) are not right.

Before you explore option (b) perform a simple test, save a microsoft
document in MY DOCS (I am assuming its a folder somewhere on your
computer), then exit office and double click the document you created.
If it opens up, you are in situation (b) else (a).

Rajeev
(thats the best i can do with information provided, Though, I am still
wondering how things work right in SAFE mode.)

What happens when you try to open the files? Do you get an error
message (and if so what is it), or does nothing happen at all? Does it
launch the correct application, even if the file itself is not opened?

One possibility - if the application launches but you get an error
message saying that the file name or path is invalid - is that the
default actions are not configured to accept spaces in the path name.
You can fix this as follows:

In Windows Explorer, go to Tools > Folder Options > File Types (may be in 
a different path depending on your version of Windows) and find the Office
extensions (xls, doc etc.). Select the Open action and click "Edit". If the
action has the program name and path followed by something like %1
with no quote marks "" around it, this is likely to be the problem.
Add quote marks
around the %1, and also around the application path if it doesn't have it.

The behavior you are describing could possibly be caused by a virus. 
The virus could be intercepting the open command and infecting the
file and creating more copies of itself elsewhere on your computer. 
If you haven't updated and run a comprehensive virus-scan on your
computer that would be the first thing I would suggest checking into. 
One thing to double check is often virus' create duplicate files with
double extensions to mask themself so when you see it through explorer
(the windwos interface) it looks like a DOC file you are opening but
it really has different extension but because word filters by
extension you dont actually see the file with the double extension
when you open it through word.  Its something to look at which would
point to some variants of a computer virus but just because you DONT
see this it DOES NOT MEAN that you dont have a virus.  This is just a
common symptom of SOME viruses.

After eliminating that as a possible cause I would look to file
association and make sure the files are associated to MSWord.  If they
arent I would suspect you would see another program launch as it treid
to read them and since you arent seeing this behavior Im guessing its
probaly not that.

Withthe behavior you are describing I would highly recommendd making
back-ups of all your important data to ensure you don't loose any
important data.  You may also want to look into possibly running
anti-spyware software but typically spyware doesnt exhibit this type
of symptoms.  Microsoft has a free spyware removal tool at:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en

I seriously doubt this is a virus. When people don't understand a
certain problem, they immediately blame viruses, including me. Having
said that, it might still be a virus.

Sound like My Documents folder on you computer is corrupt. 
Follow these steps:

1) Download TweakUI from
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

2)Create a "My_Documents" folder (or any other name you feel fit) in
the same directory as My Documents. Copy the contents of My Documents
to My_Documents.

3) In tweak ui, go to My Computer->Special Folder. Select My Documents
from the drop down box. And change it to another folder you would like
to use as My Documents, such as the one we create above.

4) Problem should be fixed! 

5) If not, reply back and I'll suggest something else.

I want to thank all those who have responded to my dilemma on trying
to open MS Office files from withing the MY DOCS folder.  I am glad to
report that this problem has been solved.  It was in fact SpyWare that
caused the problem.  Microsoft technicians worked with me for hours
trying to find out the root of the problem.  Most of the things that
all of you have made comments about were done at one time or another. 
It turns out that some time ago my wife had downloaded a game from
Wild Tangent.  When the game was no longer used it was removed from
the computer using the "add-remove" programs feature in the control
panel.  What it did not do however was to remove a few of the lines in
the registry that was causing the MS Office files in My Docs to not
load.  Why it did this with just MS Office files is still a mystery. 
When the registry was cleaned of these two lines everything was fine. 
I was using Spy Bot Search and Destroy as well as Ad-Aware Personal
(both updated) during this time.  Neither of those programs detected
this problem.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the comments.  They were all very helpful.

Tony Cooper