Keith Bates wrote:
I'm pretty sure that all recent versions of OO have asked the question,
even though plenty of people still miss it. check the version number
you are runnning. If it's less than 1.1.4 you have a very old version.
Actually, all versions of OOo *asked* the question--but early versions'
installation programs defaulted to having the boxes checked to take over
the file associations. In recent versions (including 1.1.4), the boxes
are *NOT* checked by default and users have to check the boxes during
installation.
What I suspect is happening is that users are reading too quickly when
the question comes up and believe they need to check those boxes so that
OOo *can* open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and/or will do so
without asking them ("automatically" convert them if OOo tries to open
them). Also, many of these users have no clue what the question is
asking--note that most of these posts we see suggest that OO has somehow
rendered the files unusable by Word, since it appears the only way they
ever open a file is by double clicking on the file in Windows Explorer
and have no clue about File->Open. So the thought they have is "of
course, I want OOo to be able to read Word files" and they click merrily
on each box, then are horrified as they now believe OOo has either
removed Word from their machine or rendered all files inaccessible to Word.
Back in the "old days" when the default was the other way, the posts in
this area normally complained specifically about changing the file
associations--those posters had "blown by" the screen in question, but
generally knew the problem was not that files could not be opened by
Word but that they were now associated with OOo. The change "fixed" the
problem for that group, but the true "technologically challenged" are
still confused--and, frankly, short of not having OOo offer to be
associated with those files at all, I don't know how you avoid the
problem. And, if you think about it, if OOo did not offer to take over
those files, these same people would complaining about why OOo won't
open Word files even though the website says it will...<grin>
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