need to click twice to open a finder/mac-based document in parallels using MS office

i have searched through the forums but can't seem to find a log of this issue.

its more of an annoyance than a major flaw but a flaw it is.

problem description:

when opening a .doc or .xls document that i find using the mac finder, i then proceed to click and open it expecting MS Word or MS Excel to launch in windows XP on parallels. What happens is that the app does seem to launch and i do see the Word or Excel icon in the Mac's dock but nothing after. It looks like the application is launched but the document is not opened as expected.

what i then need to do is click on the document again to get it to open and this happens relatively swiftly since the app is already launched.

this has become a bother and i feel that it could be related to some setting i have but so far have been unable to locate anything referring to this.

any feedback here would be appreciated.