System crash, now need to set up Excel

My PC is 9 years old and MSoft no longer supports XP so I need to upgrade, which I intend to do when I have fixed this problem:-

After installing an update of AVG antivirus, a message said to reboot the computer - which I did. When the reboot got to the screen that just says "Welcome", the PC just hung and wouldn't do anything. After this had happened a couple of times, and not knowing what else to do, I rebooted and pressed F10 which implements a System Recovery. I hadn't realized how extensive this process is!

Now, although my files, mainly in Excel and Word, are all saved I can't access them because it seems that the System Recovery has removed MS Office. So when I try to access Excel I get one of two messages:-
EITHER: "Microsoft Excel has not been installed for the current user. Please run setup to install the application."
OR: "One of your object libraries (vbe6.dll) is missing or damaged. Please run Setup to install it."

Anyone know how I run setup? Or what I can do now? Any advice welcome. Thanks.

 

Can anybody advise on this please? I'm in a right pickle. I don't have the original MS Office disks and all my passwords are on one of the Excel files that I can't access.

 

Thanks plodr. However, in the meantime, someone on another help site suggested I download Libreoffice, which I've now done, and this is allowing me to access and edit my files. Also, when I went to the link you suggested it says "Install this compatibility pack if you would like to open, edit, and save documents, workbooks, and presentations that were created in the newer versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint." whereas my files were created in Excel 2003 so I don't think it would work anyway. But I appreciate your help and I have certainly taken on board your advice about making a hard copy. Best wishes to you.

 

Ah, sorry, I should have read a bit further. But can you edit and save, for example, Excel spreadsheets using Viewer - in which case I can't understand why anyone would actually pay for MS Office.

 

Ah, ok - sorry, I'll give me head a shake! As it happens, I do need to edit some of the Excel spreadsheets so LibreOffice was probably my best option as I can do that now. Anyway, thanks again.