Refusal to open an attachment.

[chakka35]

I have received an email with an attachment which my compter will not open on the grounds that I have 'no program associated with it'. It advises me to get on to Folder Options to sort it out, but I can find no facility in Folder Options for doing that.
The attachment has the suffix .docx. What should I be doing? Thanks in advance.

[factor-fiction]

Do you have Word or open office? I'm sure Word should do it?

[ChuckFickens]

docx is the extension for word2007 and later, if you have an earlier version of word you can still open docx files but you'll need to install the docx converter from microsoft first.

http://www.microsoft....oad/details.aspx?id=3

[sunny-dave]

It means it has been created by a recent (2007/2010) version of Word and cannot be opened by previous versions without being converted,

The easiest thing is to ask the person who sent it to you to save the document in a mode compatible with earlier versions of word (.doc)

[Kiki-frog]

.docx is (I think) the Microsoft Works suffix, so it was probably sent from a pc with Windows Vista. Other versions of Windows won't open this without downloading an additional program from Microsoft (not very helpful!).

I get a lot of these at work, and we usually find that copying the attachment onto the desktop, right-clicking with the mouse, then clicking on Open With, and then Note Pad or whatever you have, will open it. You can then save it as an ordinary Word document. You may lose any bold or italic formatting, but it should be otherwise OK.

[Hopkirk]

I have Windows 2003, and when I received a later document I was offered the chance to download a Windows compatibility pack.

http://www.microsoft....oad/details.aspx?id=3

[sunny-dave]

< Works documents are suffixed as .wps and can come from any version of windows >

[ChuckFickens]

Or to be strictly correct, the extension of any file is never anything to do with the version of windows.

If the OP has an earlier version of word all they need to do is install the converter linked to above.

If they don't have word at all there is a free viewer that will allow you to view and print the document.
http://www.microsoft....oad/details.aspx?id=4

[chakka35]

Thanks, all of you, for the most helpful and informative answers.

[chakka35]

Alas, when I try to get on to that Microsoft converter program I get the error message "HTTP 403 Forbidden" saying that IE is not allowed to access that page. I am a second-class citizen, apparently, barred from the best places.

[wildwood]

See if you can convert it here

https://viewer.zoho.com/home.do

[chakka35]

Thanks, wildwood. Looks very promising.