opening MS Works (on XP) doc on newer laptop

longwalks1

son in law has done some homework on an older laptop with MS Works on it, on XP. My dell is only a year old (Guessing it has Vista) and cant seem to open his work to print it off, any ideas how i can?

Many thanks in advance

googler

Install MS Works on the new laptop, or install MS Office.

The operating system (XP, Vista) doesn't automatically include these applications.

You have to install them yourself unless the manufacturer/supplier of the laptop has included them at the build stage.

CashStrappedTeen89

If you dont have either, Open office which is free should work, its just a file format issue, not to hard to re-solve.

poppy10_2

Microsoft Word Viewer will allow you to view and print (but not edit) the documents for free. If you want to edit or create new documents then you will need to pay for Microsoft Works/Office, or download OpenOffice for free.

Hammyman

If he saves the files as Rich Text Format (RTF), they'll be readable by any office app.

spenderdave

Neither MS Word Viewer or OpenOffice will read MS Works files. You may find an (unofficial) converter on the web which will convert the files to .DOC which can then be viewed in Word Viewer or edited in OpenOffice. MS Works file formats are unique to Works and nothing else but Works can read them directly. I get annoyed everytime I get sent one...