Unable To Open My Corel Word Perfect 8 documents

[Ed. . . S]

In order to free up space on my hard-drive, I copied my
old files, many of which were Word Perfect 8 (WP-8)
documents, to a CD then deleted the old files.
Immediately thereafter, I was unable to access any WP-8
documents - those that are on my hard-drive as well as
those that have been saved to a CD.

I used the clean& defrag system tools thinking that this
might correct the problem but that didn't help. Next I
tried to download and install the most recent Microsoft
Updates. I had been getting these updates on a somewhat
regular basis and all but 20 ((mostly Security related
(15) plus 5 non-security related)) have been installed on
my computer. These 20 updates, the names of which can be
supplied if necessary, would not install for me.

I don't know if this is part, or all, of the problem or
not but I doubt it because I've always experienced
difficulties opening my WP-8 documents if I double-
clicked on the document icon too rapidly. I discovered,
through trial and error, that if I first just clicked the
icon once and waited a couple or three seconds before
double-clicking it again, the problem rarely occurred.
Although it was an occasional nuisance, I learned to
overcome it.

But this new problem is giving me fits. Nothing I've
looked at in the self-help FAQ's addresses this
particular problem. My computer manufacturer's support
site did not address this problem either (I went that
route first without success).

Any suggestions ? ? ?

P.S. All my Microsoft Word documents open normally and
all the other functions appear normal.

 

[Rob Schneider]

A few comments/suggestions:

1. what is the exact error message reported by the the computer when you
try to access these files?
2. what is the application you are using the access these files? Word?
Explorer? Word Perfect? Other word processor?
3. are you opening the files direct from CD, or copying files from CD
back to hard disk?
3. Cleaning and def ragging probably have no bearing on this problem.
4. Microsoft updates probably have no bearing on this problem.
5. I can't figure out what you mean by double-clicking too rapidly and
then waiting, then doing it again. I guess this tells me you are using
Explorer to open files. Does Explorer know via "file association" which
application to launch when you double-click on files with the Word
perfect file extension?
6. it is unlikely your computer manufacturer will have advice that will
bear on this problem. Have you checked with Corel?
7. If you are using Microsoft Word (and you are not saying this), have
you installed (or maybe de-installed) the Word filters for
reading/writing Word Perfect files?