ms works documents unreadable on alt.pc

If you really needed to save the documents you should have done something *before* you went on your wild upgrade binge.

If you can read the files then the disk format is OK. Floppies haven't changed from DOS to Windows except for occasionally adding a bigger capacity to the list.

Your files are probably from ancient versions of works. You can try to install import filters for old versions into your current version. If that doesn't work, try installing an old version of works. Use thatto open the really old files and save them again as the old version as an interim measure. You may be able to "step" the files along to a version which is readable by the current version.

This is a problem faced by many companies. Files placed in archives become unreadable after the system used to create them is retired. Prior planning is critical to maintaining these old records. They need to be converted to the new system while there is still a way to read them.

Good luck!

It does not usually matter which version of OS they were created on. Even if you used different versions of Word, it should be fine if you are opening the document with the newest version. All programs I know of are lower compatible.

In otherwords, Word XP will open docs created with Word 2000, Word 97 etc. If you save the doc in Word XP, then the lower versions may have difficulties with formatting... but it should still open.

MS Works is MS Word. As long as it is a current version, you should be able to open older docs by going to File --> Open. It should translate to the current version without problems.