Unable To Open Browse Window Through Other Programs

problem is that when i go to microsoft word or powerpoint or excel, i press the "open" button and nothing happens. absolutely nothing as in no window will pop up that has the c: drive similar to when you run windows explorer or anything. i should add that windows explorer still works, its just using the "open" or "browse" button that nothing happens. This also happens in other programs as well i just cant think of them at the moment. The problem seemed to start one day when i was playing a computer game and i was also using deskspace (for organization) what happened was that the game switched to a completely seperate desktop and changed one of the desktop wallpapers. if you dont know deskspace is a virtual desktop manager that organizes it like a cube (cube desktop is better but i cant get it to let me change the icons on each desktop which completely defeats the purpose for me. Deskspace is somewhat similar to compiz for anyone who knows about that program for linux. So back to the problem after that i went to change the wallpaper back to what it was before, and i pressed the "browse" button and nothing happened. I didnt really think much of it until i tried to use word today and pressed "open" and nothing happened. from there i tried various programs and none seemed to work.