How to open doc, ppt, or xls files with Google Drive with double clicks from my desktop?

You need to download the Office Editing for Docs, Sheets & Slides extension by Google.

After downloading it and installing it:

• Right-click the file you want to open ( .ppt, .doc, .xls )

• Click "Open with" then "Choose default program" and associate it with Google Chrome and enjoy it ( it should be in the "Other programs" tabs without requiring you to manually find the .exe)

This is the process for Windows 7.

2018-08-01: The answer by Freedo still works in Windows 10.

One thing to note is if you are opening legacy .doc files it will prompt you to "Save as" in a compatible format (OpenOffice XML) aka .docx if you make any changes to the file. Instead of changing the file you can use "Convert to Google Docs format" from the File menu, but by default this ends up in the root of your Drive.

To have the Google Doc version of the file saved next to the original (if the original file was already in Drive), install Google Backup and Sync and enable the Google Drive "folder" from Setting, then you should be able to browse to and right click a file and "Show on web" and then "Open in Google Docs" and this will preserve the folder path of the original file when you save instead of dumping the file into the root of your Drive.