[Magoo__]

I have Office 97. We have several users accounts which are all set up as Administrators. Only one user account actually uses Microsoft Word. On all the other accounts I can open Microsoft Word, create a new document and save it, but when I open it up again it has changed over to a WordPad document. I have tried to copy Word documents from one user to another and the Word documents become WordPad. Can anyone tell me what's going on here and how to fix it?

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Heya, magoo, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

First things first, let's check your file associations.

I see that you have Windows XP, so follow these steps:

• Open My Computer
• Click Tools then Folder Options
• Click the File Types tab and allow the list to populate
• Scroll down the list until you find the word DOC

To the right of the word DOC it should say what program is associated with it. Does it say Microsoft Word Document?

If it says anything other than Microsoft Word Document, do the following:

• Single-click on the entry for DOC
• Under the section Details for 'DOC' Extention, click Change
• In the list that pops up, find the one that refers to Microsoft Word. Single-click to select it and click OK
• Make sure that it now refers the DOC extension to Microsoft Word and click Close.

If it's already associated with Microsoft Word, reply here to that affect and we'll work on it from there.

[Guse]

Heya, magoo, and welcome to Geeks to Go!

First things first, let's check your file associations.

I see that you have Windows XP, so follow these steps:

• Open My Computer
• Click Tools then Folder Options
• Click the File Types tab and allow the list to populate
• Scroll down the list until you find the word DOC

To the right of the word DOC it should say what program is associated with it. Does it say Microsoft Word Document?

If it says anything other than Microsoft Word Document, do the following:

• Single-click on the entry for DOC
• Under the section Details for 'DOC' Extention, click Change
• In the list that pops up, find the one that refers to Microsoft Word. Single-click to select it and click OK
• Make sure that it now refers the DOC extension to Microsoft Word and click Close.

If it's already associated with Microsoft Word, reply here to that affect and we'll work on it from there.

[Magoo__]

Thanks Guse. That corrected the opening documents problem. But... all the documents still have the Wordpad icon beside them. Now, whether that is what's causing my next problem or not, I don't know - if I "move" or "cut" a document it doesn't leave the original folder, it does copy to the new location but remains in the original location and I have to go back and "delete" it.

[Guse]

Changing the file association should have changed the icon, too... that's odd. Part of me wants to say that on older Office installations, you can change those icons by right clicking them, but I could be way off. Besides, even if it did work, it would seem to me to be on a file by file basis, and that would just suck.

Now a Question: where are you moving the file to? If you drag an item to another disk (or network location), it is copied, not moved. To move the item, press and hold down SHIFT while dragging.

[Magoo__]

I'm just moving documents from one folder to another. I work at home and after I create a document, it goes into one folder and then later when it is completely finished, it goes into another folder. On my main user account this all works how it's supposed to and I never had any problems with Wordpad popping up. Now I have tried to add another user account to deal with just my business and that's where all the problems are centered - 1st the wordpad docs, now the icons and being unable to "move" the docs totally.

Thanks for any ideas you have, it would be great if I could get my "work" user account to work the same as my original user account.