MS Office/Word 2007 won't open Word docs

[PDP8E]

I upgraded to a Dell XPS, base model. Vista was installed, as was Office 2007. However Microsoft Word 2007 will not open Word documents created before 2001. Does anyonw else have this problem?

The Microsoft website offered a way to change the Registry, but admitted that was a risky procedure, that could be unrepairable.

Word 2007 can open most of my 1997-2003 docs in "compatibility mode." It's truly inconvenient and un-userfriendly that Word cannot open Word documents. I would like to save them into the new Word format, but I can't even open them. No other installed program will open them. I am a writer and have hundreds of documents I use rarely, but which I need.

Is there anyway to easily convert old word files into RTF, rich text format, or another format (HTML, or plain text) that can be read by most word processors?

Should I buy an old version of Word and install that to read my old docs?

Because of this lack of backwards compatibility, I am planning, in the future, to switch to Linux, Firefox and Open Office. Maybe I should get out of proprietary word processing right now. Thanks!

 

[dude_se]

right click the document. go to open with. and then choose wordpad. then you can save it as a rtf or txt or what ever you want. then you can copy to office 07 if you want

 

[alvino]

Yeah, Office 2007 has a new format now, its supposedly smaller in size. It should be compatible with all 97-2003 documents. As for being in compatibility mode, I'm not too sure if theres a big difference. Sometimes I have to save my school essays in both formats because when I upload an essay to Turnitin.com or e-mail it to school to print, it needs to be in 97-2003 format because my school hasn't upgraded yet so the new 2007 format isn't fully accepted yet.

 

[PDP8E]

Dude--thanks for the advice to right click and choose a new program to open with. I had tried that before, but could not find other programs. This time, I noticed the small button on the right (for other programs) and found Wordpad.
Unfortunately, the same problem. Wordpad won't open my docs.

Notepad does, but with total loss of formatting.

Any other ideas?

 

[Raffaz]

Thats strange, i can open all my documents with no problems. Will they open ok on another pc? Check that, they might be corrupted or something. You could also try repairing office incase somethings wrong with that

 

[Ronco Rox]

are these files .docs that were written on the older version of MS Word?

if so you might want to check this out
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en
that should allow you to open the files and copy and paste them into MS 2007

 

[PDP8E]

The files are not corrupted. They all open fine on another computer.

They are .docs.

Wordpad wouldn't install, perhaps b/c of Vista. And copying and pasting that many docs wouldn't make sense.

Do you think OpenOffice would open them?

 

[Raffaz]

office2007 should have no problem opening .doc files. Try repairing it from add/remove programs.

 

[drumthrasher]

Could you possibly upload one of the documents so I can see?
I've opened stuff with word 1997 with MSO 2007 and it works fine.