- unable to open transferred files from Windows 98
- Posted by prof pat on October 13th, 2005
Okay, I had a great old dinosaur pc, a 1997 Gateway, that worked great for
the simple word processing applications I used at home. I just this week got
a brand new fancy Dell XPS, and had the IT admnistrator from work backup
everything on my old hard drive onto my new hard drive. He created a folder
entitled backup. When I try to open any of these files (made in Word 98), I
get an error message that says "Cannot open because there is a dialog box
open. Click okay, then close dialog boxes to continue." There is a box behind
the dialog open box that appears when the dialog box message appears, which
says "Windows installer...preparing to install..." that disappears when I
click okay on the open dialog box OK tab. Please do not tell me that I have
lost 7.5 hours of class lectures that I spent 5 weeks preparing. I tried
copying the folder into My Documents, but get the same message when I try to
open it there. Please tell there's a simple solution! Thanks.
- Posted by Bob Harris on October 13th, 2005
Ask the IT fellow whether the files are in a simple directory tree, or
whether they are stored in some backup archive, as a single file? If a
single file, then you need to use the same program to read/copy them as was
used to create them. The popup about wanting to install something may be
XP's way of saying that it needs a program to be installed, before it can
read the files.
If you have XP home edition, note that it does NOT come with NTBACKUP
installed. You need to manually install that from the XP CDROM. I have
heard that it might also be available from Microsoft, in case you do not
have an XP CDROM.
See the following link about installing NTBACKUP:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/backup_f...me_edition.htm
"prof pat" <prof pat@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:573E29DB-F2D9-4844-8541-F2CC894ABF8E@microsoft.com...
> Okay, I had a great old dinosaur pc, a 1997 Gateway, that worked great for
> the simple word processing applications I used at home. I just this week
> got
> a brand new fancy Dell XPS, and had the IT admnistrator from work backup
> everything on my old hard drive onto my new hard drive. He created a
> folder
> entitled backup. When I try to open any of these files (made in Word 98),
> I
> get an error message that says "Cannot open because there is a dialog box
> open. Click okay, then close dialog boxes to continue." There is a box
> behind
> the dialog open box that appears when the dialog box message appears,
> which
> says "Windows installer...preparing to install..." that disappears when I
> click okay on the open dialog box OK tab. Please do not tell me that I
> have
> lost 7.5 hours of class lectures that I spent 5 weeks preparing. I tried
> copying the folder into My Documents, but get the same message when I try
> to
> open it there. Please tell there's a simple solution! Thanks.
- Posted by Larry Samuels on October 13th, 2005
Open Word first--click on the dialog box to complete the initial setup of
Word. Then open your files.
--
Larry Samuels Associate Expert
MS-MVP (2001-2005)
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://pelos.us/SERVER.htm
Expert Zone- www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
"prof pat" <prof pat@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:573E29DB-F2D9-4844-8541-F2CC894ABF8E@microsoft.com...
> Okay, I had a great old dinosaur pc, a 1997 Gateway, that worked great for
> the simple word processing applications I used at home. I just this week
> got
> a brand new fancy Dell XPS, and had the IT admnistrator from work backup
> everything on my old hard drive onto my new hard drive. He created a
> folder
> entitled backup. When I try to open any of these files (made in Word 98),
> I
> get an error message that says "Cannot open because there is a dialog box
> open. Click okay, then close dialog boxes to continue." There is a box
> behind
> the dialog open box that appears when the dialog box message appears,
> which
> says "Windows installer...preparing to install..." that disappears when I
> click okay on the open dialog box OK tab. Please do not tell me that I
> have
> lost 7.5 hours of class lectures that I spent 5 weeks preparing. I tried
> copying the folder into My Documents, but get the same message when I try
> to
> open it there. Please tell there's a simple solution! Thanks.
- Posted by prof pat on October 13th, 2005
Thank you, Larry, that worked like a charm! I knew that this would be too
much computer for me (and since it's been 7 years since I had to set up and
install something...that's the excuse I'm using, anyway). Thanks for the
rapid (and right) reply! doc pat
- Posted by Larry Samuels on October 13th, 2005
You're very welcome!
--
Larry Samuels Associate Expert
MS-MVP (2001-2005)
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://pelos.us/SERVER.htm
Expert Zone- www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
"prof pat" <profpat@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B21CE3C2-561B-418B-8B77-9C4C142D4B24@microsoft.com...
>
> Thank you, Larry, that worked like a charm! I knew that this would be too
> much computer for me (and since it's been 7 years since I had to set up
> and
> install something...that's the excuse I'm using, anyway). Thanks for the
> rapid (and right) reply! doc pat
