Re: Word and Excel files not opening for PC users! Help!

Hi Kurt:

Oh, Microsoft did move beyond it, years ago :-) PCs have not needed file
extensions since Windows 95... :-)

The only OS that still wants them is... Ummm .... Mac OS X :-)

This is not a holdout for the DOS era, it's a compatibility feature retained
in DOS from Unix, which has now come full circle; now WE use extensions and
THEY don't :-)

Harry's not wrong, but his advice is unlikely to solve the problem, because
whatever it is, it's not likely to be lack of file extensions.

What is more likely to be the problem is that when the user upgraded his
Internet connection, he re-configured his firewall and antivirus (or the
installer did that for him...). Now, he's trying to open Word and Excel
files by double-clicking them from inside his mail program. If his virus
program is working correctly, it won't let him: it will force him to save
the file to disk first so it can get a good look at it :-) As it should!

Computer users need to get out of the habit of double-clicking things in
email programs: if they all did that, they would put the virus writers out
of business overnight!

Cheers

On 30/8/05 11:20 AM, in article
labolide-7BD45C.18204229082005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Kurt"
<labolide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In article <300820050917489008%helpful_harry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> Helpful Harry <helpful_harry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> celticlass66@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't know why this is happening now, but I am having terrible
>>> trouble getting Word and Excel files to open on a PC. It is saying it's
>>> a binary file and can't open it. I'm taking classes online, and this
>>> hasn't been happening before. The only change is I went from DSL to a
>>> cable modem - I can't see how that would be different. Any suggestions
>>> - I'm lost!
>>
>> The simplest and most common mistake when transferring files from Mac
>> to Windows is that the files should have the correct threee letter
>> extension on the end of the filenames.
>>
>> For Word files the filename has to end with ".doc" (without he
>> quotemarks) while Excel documents have to be ".xls".
>>
>> Helpful Harry
>> Hopefully helping harassed humans happily handle handiwork hardships ;o)
>
> And Mac users are still trying to figure out why we can't just name a
> document what we want for PC users since they work fine for us ;-)
>
> Always wondered why MS doesn't get beyond this holdout from the DOS era.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <john@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

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