I installed a Dell PC for a customer. It has MS Works 7.0 as standard.
The customer has loads of MS Word documents with the Word-extension .DOC

I have set the file-type .DOC to associate with the Works Wordprocessor, and when I double-click a .DOC file, it opens correctly with Works-Word. However, it converts the .DOC file upon opening into a .WPS file, the default for that program.

At my customer's site, the document gets only printed and it never changes. But when you then close the file and/or the program, the sh.t-program keeps asking to save the changes (because it converted it to .WPS).

Is there any way to stop this evil-doer from converting, and can I set the default filetype to .DOC?

It drives my customer bananas!!!

Why doesn't he simply use Wordpad to open any .doc files? Wordpad also uses the .doc file extension.

Either that or he simply clicks 'No' when asked to save changes in Works.

Does Works have a default save word file as option in the tools\preferences menu (or any of its menus - I don't use Works so I don't know its options)?

If your customer has documents that are only printed, not edited, then they should consider Adobe Acrobat .pdf format for the documents. At least then they can't be acidentally changed and the layout will be consistent regardless of wp program settings.

These files all have a special font and page-settings, which are not available under Wordpad.
That "Works-Word" looks and feels like a castrated version of the real Word, except for the stupid .wps extension.
I will set all .DOC files to read-only, so no accidents can happen.

But I still want to change the default as described.
Any offers?

Stupid Microsoft (but then again, I am not alone with this opinion!).

I'll be installing a "real" MS Word on that PC.