MSWord 97 / Win Me

Every time I save a document as an MSword document and then open the file it opens in notepad with all kinds of HTML junk. I have tried coping and pasting nothing works the results are always the same. When I save it to a 3 1/2 in floppy take it to another computer it open as an MSWord document with no problem. No viruses have been detected. Must be a setting or somthing. Any suggestions?