Excel & Word not working suspect temp folder error

Thank you, Jamony.  Your clue about the protection history worked.  I was able to go into the history and found out that my Excel and Word folders were being blocked, as was my postage program (postage is not Microsoft program)

These programs said "Protected Folder Access Blocked".  I opened a few of them and they all said "your administrator has blocked this action".  I then clicked the "controlled folder access settings" and allowed Excel, Word, and my postage program through the controlled folder access.

So the programs are working, but is this a safe method?  When I reviewed the list of "controlled folder access" my entire C:/ drive is listed, as are all my documents, photos, onedrive, etc.  So by allowing Word and Excel thru have I created some sort of security risk?

I didn't go thru all the steps you listed.  I wasn't able to check for ScreenConnect via the Protection History, as there are hundreds of entries and I have to manually click into each one to see it.  I wasn't able to find a search function of the Protection History to check for the words "ScreenConnect".  However, when this happened, I did contact the company that originally sent the email with the link to me, and their internet security person had me check Task Manager to make sure it ScreenConnect wasn't showing as any process running in the background (it wasn't) and also advised me to change my email password as that is how the problem is spread.   He thought that I was safe as it wasn't running as a background process.

For safety, should I continue thru all the steps you listed?  I stopped at your instructions "after scanning". 

Also, is there a search function in the Protection History? 

Thank you