Help! Updated to Serv Pack 3 - Word Docs are now Wordpad!

[CalDreamer]

I'm a reasonably sophisticated non-techie computer user (hang out on
Cnet.com; used to go to CastleCops for issues). So friends come to me for
help all the time.

Recently a friend had me download a number of patches and upgrades (Adobe,
Microsoft, Corel). Everything went fine except, I suspect, with the upgrade
from MS Office Service Pack1 to Service Pack 2 and then Service Pack 3. My
friend has a Lenovo T60 running WinXP.

Here's the problem. All the MS Word icons (blue with a "W") on her desktop
(each representing a saved Word document) changed to red and blue Wordpad
Icons. Sure enough, the documents are now Wordpad documents.

Also, if she goes into Microsoft Outlook and attaches ANY Word document into
an email the icon for the attachment is a red and blue Wordpad icon and if
she opens the attached document it is indeed in Wordpad.

However, if she opens the Word program itself from within Microsoft Office
Service Pack 3, the document is opened in Word, NOT in Wordpad. But if she
then goes and attaches the same Word document to an email in MS Outlook it
becomes a Wordpad document.

Help! What hapened during the download? More importantly, how do I help
her get her Word program functioning properly, get those Word documents saved
to the Desktop away from Wordpad and back to Word, and how can we change the
default (or whatever) in Outlook so that attachments from Word stay in Word
and never convert to Wordpad?

I don't even know how to use Wordpad or how to access it on XP (or Vista -
my laptop is an HP and runs Vista).

Thanks in advance for your advice! We need to get some business docs out as
attachments immediately.

Alex

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

I'm a reasonably sophisticated non-techie computer user (hang out on
Cnet.com; used to go to CastleCops for issues). So friends come to me for
help all the time.

Recently a friend had me download a number of patches and upgrades (Adobe,
Microsoft, Corel). Everything went fine except, I suspect, with the
upgrade
from MS Office Service Pack1 to Service Pack 2 and then Service Pack 3.
My
friend has a Lenovo T60 running WinXP.

Here's the problem. All the MS Word icons (blue with a "W") on her
desktop
(each representing a saved Word document) changed to red and blue Wordpad
Icons. Sure enough, the documents are now Wordpad documents.

Also, if she goes into Microsoft Outlook and attaches ANY Word document
into
an email the icon for the attachment is a red and blue Wordpad icon and
if
she opens the attached document it is indeed in Wordpad.

However, if she opens the Word program itself from within Microsoft Office
Service Pack 3, the document is opened in Word, NOT in Wordpad. But if
she
then goes and attaches the same Word document to an email in MS Outlook it
becomes a Wordpad document.

Help! What hapened during the download? More importantly, how do I help
her get her Word program functioning properly, get those Word documents
saved
to the Desktop away from Wordpad and back to Word, and how can we change
the
default (or whatever) in Outlook so that attachments from Word stay in
Word
and never convert to Wordpad?

I don't even know how to use Wordpad or how to access it on XP (or Vista -
my laptop is an HP and runs Vista).

Thanks in advance for your advice! We need to get some business docs out
as
attachments immediately.

Alex

Your Word documents are still Word documents but your file associations have
been disturbed. All you need to do is to point .doc files back at
Winword.exe. Click Start / Help, then type the word association
and read how to change the program that opens a file.

 

[CalDreamer]

Your Word documents are still Word documents but your file associations have
been disturbed. All you need to do is to point .doc files back at
Winword.exe. Click Start / Help, then type the word association
and read how to change the program that opens a file.


Wow! That was easy. Its been so long since I've even thought about file asociations; this problem actually happened to one of my destops many years ago and I had completely forgotten. Thanks for the refresher, Pegasus!

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

Wow! That was easy. Its been so long since I've even thought about file
asociations; this problem actually happened to one of my destops many
years ago and I had completely forgotten. Thanks for the refresher,
Pegasus!

Thanks for the feedback.