Winnebago info

[Rankin, Robert L]

I've installed both Word and Wordperfect on all my computers and the two
don't really get confused over whose document is whose.  That might have
been a problem in the old DOS days.

Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: Koontz John E [mailto:John.Koontz at colorado.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 6:43 PM
To: Siouan List
Subject: Re: Winnebago info


On Wed, 15 Jan 2003, R. Rankin wrote:
> > I just needed a Word Perfect to read it, it seems, and Bob was kind
> > enough to lend me his ver.8.  And then, I was about to install it today,
> > when my PC consultant EM'd early this a.m., saying Dont do it, because
> > the WP files end in a ".doc" extention, just like MSWord.
>
> No, Wordperfect documents have a .WPD extension, not .DOC.  Also, it
> shouldn't be a problem even so, provided you keep the Word and
> Wordperfect files in different subdirectories.  If you install
> Wordperfect, it should install a subdirectory called "My Files" or
> "Corel user files" that is distinct from the "My Documents" under
> Word.  Put the dict. and grammar files in the Corel files folder and
> Wordperfect will find them properly.  Don't let your consultant charge
> you for that information.  :-)

I think the consultant is concerned that installing WP without knowing
what you are doing might cause it to kidnap the *.doc extension.
Installation procedures get to set up what happens when you click on a
file with a particular extension and what icon will be used with a file of
a given extension in iconic displays of files.  I think that Windows
actually allows applications to share extensions, e.g., analogs of the the
"edit with" menu options as opposed to just "edit," but in practice the
best you get is an offer, sometimes rather deviously concealed, to leave
an extension with the existing holder.  Sometimes you don't get that.

Since the built in facilities for managing extensions are still (through
Win2K, anyway) just an ability to hand edit the associations or to set
everything back to the initial state for Windows (previous to any
installations of software you've made), extension kidnapping can be rather
difficult to recover from, and require reinstalling the affected packages.
There are some third party extension managers, that can undo recent
extension handling changes, but I don't have any experience with them.

Another potential installation issue is analogous to this.  Some
applications have other special properties that can be kidnapped by a
later installation, such as being selected to send email from within
another program, etc.

I have used versions of WP that recognized a special relationship with
*.doc files, but I think that was under DOS.  However, that was the last
time a lot of people were exposed to WP.