Saturday, July 31, 2010
Microsoft, docx & "Free File Viewer"
My wife got an email with an attached document the other day. It had a filename extension of docx, which her computer (Windows XP, Service Pack 3) did not recognize. Go to the web to find an application that will open it and we have a Microsoft web page with a list of four applications. The last one is labeled Free File Viewer. I like the Free part, and as none of the others say Free, I suspect that they will cost some amount of money. So I select the Free File Viewer. I think this must have been one of the most obnoxious installations I have ever done. There were half a dozen screens to step through, and every one of them had a list of options. All these options were turned on by default and they enabled the installation of all kinds of other stuff besides the Free File Viewer. I carefully deselected every single one, but it still managed to install the Yahoo Toolbar. Fortunately, Firefox detected this, and gave me a chance to remove it right away. Next time I need some kind of utility program, I will go someplace else besides Microsoft.
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4 comments:
Interesting that you should post about this. I too recently got an attachment in .docx format.
When I clicked it, the application the system chose was ... Adobe Illustrator.
Which I was able to export to plain text file from.
But Illustrator? WTF?
docx are microsoft extensions for microsoft office for Mac.. change the extension to doc and it should work on a PC
Marty North
Samuel - Illustrator is commercial software. You paid money for it. It better be able to open any file you ask it.
Marty - I tried changing the file extension to .doc. I still wasn't able to open it. Further, I wasn't able to change it back.
Even worse, my computer has gotten infected with some mal-ware. Did this bit of nastiness come in with the Free File Viewer? Oh, wait, no, wrong computer. Never mind.
Talk about good timing, I was a click away from downloading “free file viewer” when I thought, maybe I should check for any reviews on this. Thanks for the post!
PS – the following is unrelated to this subject, but something to share back;
Following an article implying the type of results that you could expect from being evolved in what the article was about, there was some fine print to small for most people to read. I copied and pasted it to Word at 14 point so it could be read, here’s what it said;
*It is important to note that this site and the comments/answers depicted above is to be used as an illustrative example of what some individuals have achieved with this/these products. This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments. Thus, this page, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story. This page, and the results mentioned on this page, although achievable for some, are not to be construed as the results that you may achieve on the same routine. I UNDERSTAND THIS WEBSITE IS ONLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF WHAT CAN BE ACHIEVABLE FROM USING THIS/THESE PRODUCTS, AND THAT THE STORY/COMMENTS DEPICTED ABOVE IS NOT NECESSARILY THE RESULTS I WILL HAVE.
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