Word Viewer Compatibility with Vista

[vanilla]

I mistakenly thought that WordPad could open .doc files. When I tried to
open a .doc file, a box came up asking me if I wanted to look on the Web for
the program or select one I already have available. I chose to look on the
web and went to a page that had a link to Word Viewer 2003. There was a
further link to download new Word 2007 .docx and other capabilities to
augment Word Viewer 2003 but I saw that Vista was not listed as a supported
OS.

Am I going to have to go buy a Vista compatible version of Works? (Cheaper
than Office or the Word standalone.) Or will the Word Viewer 2003 (with 2007
..docx mini-upgrade after install) work in Vista? Would I need to specify
XPSP2 on the compat tab?

Thanks much ... vanilla

 

[Michael Jennings]

OpenOffice doesn't advertise that it works in Vista, but I have found that it
does, and it opens Word and other Office files for me in Vista. Some OO
features require Java, which they suggest you get first. Sun is pushing the
JRE 5 to Windows users, which doesn't work in Vista. The Java runtime
environment 6 works in Vista, so you need to know where to get that one:
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp
Scroll down to Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 and click download.
Accept the License Agreement. Check the second Windows selection.
Sun isn't allowing you to avoid using their download manager, so click
the orange bar. Tell the download manager where to dump the small file.
Click the small file. Permit it to download and install the 12-1/2 MB JRE 6.

Downloading OpenOffice isn't nearly as involved with dialogue boxes,
but it is a 93.9 MB download. When you install it, you will need to set
it as the default application to open Microsoft Word Documents by
putting a check mark into that box. Otherwise they won't click open.
http://www.openoffice.org/

To answer your, "Am I going to have to buy...," question: No.
You don't have to buy anything in order to be able to view .doc files.
It's up to you to decide whether free is worth the aggravation or not.