Word 97 in XP

[Guest]

I just installed a new computer with M/S XP . I loaded Office 97 Pro and
Word 97 seems to have a problem. All of my saved docs are now Wordpad docs
and while I can open them in Word97, they save as Wordpad. All new docs
created in Word 97 are also saved as Wordpad docs. I've tried calling HP (my
computer) and M/S as well as searching M/S websites and haven't found a
solution. Any help out there?

 

[Kevin]

You need to remember to install the SP 1 patch for Office 97 Pro. It's
about 25 MB in size. Free from the Office website. My version of Office 97
Pro works perfectly under Windows XP with the patch installed.

 

[Guest]

I've already tried SP 1!

You need to remember to install the SP 1 patch for Office 97 Pro. It's
about 25 MB in size. Free from the Office website. My version of Office 97
Pro works perfectly under Windows XP with the patch installed.

 

[Pete]

Theresa,

I assume that your files are saved from Word97 with a ".doc" extension and
not as rich text format with the ".rtf" extension..
Open "My Computer" and select Tools->Folder Options.
Click on File Types tab.
Scroll down the list of file types to the "doc" file type.
Click on the "doc" file type to select it.
Click the "change" button. This will open the "Open With" dialog box.
Find "Word" on the list and select it. Make sure the box "always use this
program..." is checked.
Click "okay" to close the dialogs to get back to My Computer.
Check to see if the file association is now with Word.

Make sure when you use Word 97 that the file saves are done to word's native
file format (.doc) and not as Rich Text.

Pete

 

[Dave Peterson]

Another way of resetting the file associations for MSWord is:

Close MSWord
windows start button|run
winword /unregserver
then
windows start button|run
winword /regserver

I find this a little safer than manually playing with the registry or even doing
it manually.

 

[Guest]

Pete,

You're a genius -- very simple solution and it worked! Thanks,

Theresa