If you're using Open With, then you're not using Open. You would have to
check the file association to see what action is designated as the default
for that file type. Or perhaps Word is just defaulting to New for all
non-.doc files.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

"Tino" wrote in message
...
OK. If I right-click on a .doc file I get the same as you. The non-.doc
files I am trying to open are NOT .dot files, generally they are
unregistered files, e.g. .bu, .tt, and often I want to open a .txt file
with
word but as those ones are registered to another program I use open-with.
It
doesn't matter what the extension is, non-.doc files seem to open as "new"
files.



"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
No, I understand exactly what you're doing. But if Word is registered
properly, then the default action for a .doc file (in Windows Explorer)
is
Open and for a .dot file is New. If I right-click on a .doc file in an
Explorer window, I get Open (bolded), Edit, New, and Print as the first
menu
items. I'm just confirming that you are sure you are choosing Open. If
so,
I
can't imagine why you are unable to open the document.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Tino" wrote in message
...
From your reply maybe you still think I'm trying to open the file from
within Word. I'm not trying to open a file with Word already open. In a
"my
computer" window I select the file I want to open & then "right click"
on
it
to get either "open" or "open with" and then I choose a program with
which
to open the file. I did some further experimenting and found that if I
use
Wordpad or Notepad to open the file the file will be opened with it's
correct name and in the correct location. The problem seems confined to
Word.



"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
If you're sure you're choosing Open and not New, then I have no idea
what
might be going wrong.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Tino" wrote in message
...
I'm just using the mouse to "right click" on a file, right click
only
gives
"ope" or "open with". I'm not trying to open a file from within
word.
I
can
only files from within word OK but that's not what I want to do as I
have
to
use word to "browse" to the file.

"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Are you sure you're choosing Open rather than New? The behavior
you
describe
is what you would experience if you were choosing New.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup
so
all may benefit.

"Tino" wrote in message
...
I'm not sure if this is a WORD problem or an XP problem.

I have recently upgraded from NT to XP (service pack 2). I also
have
WORD97.
When I open a file which doesn't have a .DOC extension with WORD
by
using
"right click & OPEN" and then choosing WORD it opens the file OK
but
it
displays a file name of "DOCUMENT 1" and treats the file as if it
were
a
new
file. When I go to save the file it is as if I am saving a new
file
with
the
default directory of "MY DOCUMENTS". With NT I didn't have this
problem.
Non
.DOC files would be opened with their correct file name and could
back
in
their original format in their original directory. Is there a fix
for
this
problem?



regards

Peter