After Upgrade to XP ServPak3 Word '03 Often Wordpad Instead

[CalDreamer]

I'm a reasonably sophisticated non-techie computer user (hang out on
Cnet.com; used to go to CastleCops for issues). So friends come to me for
help all the time.

Recently a friend had me download a number of patches and upgrades (Adobe,
Microsoft, Corel). Everything went fine except, I suspect, with the upgrade
from MS Office Professional Service Pack 1 to Service Pack 2 and then Service
Pack 3. My friend has a Lenovo T60 running WinXP.

Here's the problem. All the MS Word 2003 icons (blue with a "W") on her
desktop (each representing a saved Word document) changed to red and blue
Wordpad Icons. Sure enough, the documents are now Wordpad documents.

Also, if she goes into Microsoft Outlook and attaches ANY Word document into
an email the icon for the attachment is a red and blue Wordpad icon and if
she opens the attached document it is indeed in Wordpad.

However, if she opens the Word program itself from within Microsoft Office
Service Pack 3, the document is opened in Word, NOT in Wordpad. But if she
then goes and attaches the same Word document to an email in MS Outlook it
becomes a Wordpad document.

Help! What hapened during the download? More importantly, how do I help
her get her Word program functioning properly, get those Word documents saved
to the Desktop away from Wordpad and back to Word, and how can we change the
default (or whatever) in Outlook so that attachments from Word stay in Word
and never convert to Wordpad?

I don't even know how to use Wordpad or how to access it on XP Professional
(or Vista - my laptop is an HP and runs Vista).

Thanks in advance for your advice! We need to get some business docs out as
attachments immediately.

Alex

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=307859 "How to change or
select which program starts when you double-click a file in
Windows XP".