Microsoft Office 2010

I have an ACER laptop (2 years old) using windows7, came with a preloaded trial of Microsoft Office. Never used this as I purchased Office Home and Student 2010, downloaded ok. Any word docs i create or are sent as attachments on email are ok under my user name and was the same for my wifes usrname. somewhere along the line its gone wrong as any that my wife recieves as email attachments under her user name don't show the word symbol on the icon, says its a DOCX but will not open. She cannot create word docs or excel. If she forwards her emails to me then they are all ok.