Now even I had to look up an acronym - SIL. ;-) Ok, so you have MS Works XLR & WPS files. The problems you are having - or going to have - is that Works is old, and the Office XP Pro your SIL gave you is also old, being actually Office 2002, version 10 of Office. If you don't have too many files, I think your best bet is to try an online file converter. Zamzar claims to be able to open and convert Works files. http://www.zamzar.com/ Save : XLR (spreadsheet) files to xlsx WPS (word) files to docx If you don't want to buy a new version of MS Office, try installing LibreOffice - the newer version of OpenOffice - and it will open xlsx and docx files [ If you want to stick with your SIL's MS Office XP Pro, then convert those files to xls & doc files, respectively. That version of Office is very old though. ] There are other ways of handling this, but probably if you you're going to try anything else, your best bet would be buy MS Works off Ebay or Amazon for $10 or so, open and convert all the files. Btw, you can't even open a .doc file in Office XP Pro ?? That's not a good sign - probably a sign of corruption. Btw #2 - When you say you can't open files, I take it they are on your current hard drive, and not within some compressed backup folder. That is, not within a zip file or the like. Re your backup cds : Can you load one of them, then rummage around in their files and tell us what you find ? (as in, names of files and extensions ?) Most likely they are proprietary formats, but if we know what they are, we could perhaps tell you how to retrieve them. Last, anyway you can get the hard drive back from the repair service ? Probably not, but it would be a second source of backup files. Let us know how it all works out.

I have taken most of your holiday...please allow me one more question. I have a letter in my INBOX (Outlook Express) that has an .XLS attatchment. I can get the text from the letter just fine, when I click on the attatchment, I get this message. "The operating System is not presently configured to run this application" The sender told me it was a membership list, which probably includes names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I am using X-P SP3. Any and all suggestions welcome. Steve

Yes, the whole "Vista is a horrible monster" thing was way overblown. It wasn't MS's finest moment, but led to a lot of ill considered piling on. SnidelyWhiplash wrote : >>"kbarb, in that other conversation, . . . . If you want to guide that person through a conversion to Linux or a Windows upgrade, please go ahead." That desire was never expressed, neither for nor against - the person wasn't asking for any help installing an OS. The point you're trying to distract from with that sarcastic remark, is your blanket statement that any computer (hardware) with Vista (OS) isn't worth resuscitating and destined for the trash bin. It's just tendentious bad advice, for reasons afore stated. SnidelyWhiplash wrote : >>"15 year old . . . car with bald tires . . . . you'd say "Stop trying to deal with that junker and get something more reliable". Is calling the car a junker offensive?" Your analogy there is extremely exaggerated and hyperbolic, so not in useful support of your argument. Nevertheless, despite attempting to persuade someone towards what you think is a more promising direction, Yes, - saying something like that using derogatory words to someone who liked their car would be insensitive - the exact point we're trying to make. There are a myriad more considerate ways of wording things. And as mikie_gw has noted, we're getting way off track here as the OP's question is about Google Docs security and office type software suites.

Yes, the .doc extension is a standard Microsoft Word file extension, although the new format uses .docx. When you're using LibreOffice though, by default it will save to its own format as .odt. To change so that it always saves to a Microsoft format (for working with others), go to : Tools>Options>Load/Save>General>Document type .. Always save as or Preferences... -> load/save-> general -> always save as -> choose Saving Documents by Default in Microsoft Office Formats