joew4 said:
I have XP Home Ediiton and I receive email thru COMCAST some with
attachments. When I try to open some attachments I get a Windows
Installer whcih downloads the following: MICROSOFT OFFICE STANDARD
EDITION 2003
User Name Ititials Organization Product Key
If I cancel I can't get the attachment
I don't want to buy this just to read email - how do I work around
it. I've tried powerpoint but that doesn't work I'm a novice at this
Please reply to (e-mail address removed)
Joe, it's a shame you transmitted your e-mail address (without munging
it). You will now likely see a dramatic increase in spam. :-(
Also, the correct method to get replies is to come back to this thread.
This way, others may benefit from the responses.
What e-mail program do you use? Or perhaps do you just use the Comcast
Web page portal?
What are these attachments? Word documents? Excel spreadsheets.
Powerpoint presentations? What are the file extensions? Have you ever
installed Microsoft Office? Or do you have a trial version installed on
your PC?
In case your extensions are hidden, you should really unhide them:
My Computer | Tools | Folder Options... | View
You should then see this window:
http://www.dlinkblogs.com/attach/84/02_unhide_extensions.jpg
If that box is empty, check it and click OK.
If you only have a trial version of Microsoft Office and don't wish to
purchase it, you should uninstall it:
Start | Control Panel | Add or Remove Programs
You can then install the *free* suite called Open Office:
http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
If all the attachments are .doc files, WordPad (which is a very
rudimentary word processor that comes with Windows XP) can read many of
them (depending on the formatting). You can download one of these
attachments and right-click and select Open With. Choose WordPad. To
always make this automatic, select "Choose Program" and then select
WordPad and then check the box next to "Always use the selected program
to open this kind of file."
HTH.
