singapore tom wrote:
I reinstalled Word XP and Windows XP. Since then in my document
folders there are a lot of duplicate "greyed" docs which have a ~and
a $ sign before them - in fact replacing the first few letters of the
document name. If I try to open them dialogue box says the
appropriate converter is not there. The original document is still
there but it clutters up the folders and sometimes takes up 1/2 the
space. How did they get there and how can I get rid of them without
having to manually delete them and if I do so will there be a problem?

Those files are some of Word's temporary files, as explained at
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632. They will *always* be there while
you're actively editing documents. They should be deleted automatically when
Word closes, but sometimes it fails to clean up. You can do the cleanup
manually or with a batch file; see
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org