The command cannot be performed ......Please Help?

Last week my laptop froze and I sent it in for start up again. My IT friend updated Windows version 5.1 service pack 2 to service pack 3, whatever that means - I am slightly (actually quite) computer impaired, so please grace me with some patience. Since all this has been done I cannot access Microsoft Office Word and Excel. The message I get upon creating new documents or opening existing files is THE COMMAND CANNOT BE PERFORMED BECAUSE THE DIALOG BOX IS OPEN. CLICK OK AND THEN CLOSE DIALOG BOX TO CONTINUE. When I do this, the following message reads REPAIR MICROSOFT OFFICE 11.0. Upon the okay button, the following message is "WINDOWS INSTALLER PREPARING TO INSTALL". Only a while later does the document open. I do not know what went wrong and how to recover the software. Can somebody please help. I may mention that my pc is 90% full. I have stored all my music and pictures on an external hard drive, but cannot make backups of my documents until they are recovered. I am too afraid to delete anything at this stage, in case I should encounter recovery problems in the future. PLEASE HELP.