losing MS Word

I don't want anything to do with MS Word. I have Word Perfect on my computer. Every document wants to open in MS Word. I know how to click a document, then right click, and then choose Word Perfect, but I don't want to go through all that every time I want to open a document. I cannot find the simple dialog box I have seen so many times in the past, where it instructs you to choose, "always use this program to open this type of document." No matter what I try or where I look, I cannot find anything that lets me choose to automatically use Word Perfect instead of MS Word. How can I get MS Word completely off my computer? I never installed the program. Why does MS Word put me through the same routine every time I want to open a document where they try to get me to buy MS Word. I'll never buy it again, but it haunts me like ghost.

Berton said:

When you get the Open with menu there usually is a checkbox at the bottom about Always use this program but some times one has to scroll the list to click a program name to get the box to show up. You can also get into Control Panel, Default Programs to change things. Just a note: even though I have Microsoft Office I also keep WordPerfect [since WP for Windows in '92] as there's a few things easier to accomplish versus Word.

"but some times one has to scroll the list to click a program name to get the box to show up."

Yes, thank you. There was nothing to scroll. They gave me three choices: MS Word, WordPerfect, or choose another app. "Choose another app?" What app? I clicked "Choose another app, and again I had the choice between MS Word and Word Perfect. This time the check box was there, the check box I'd been searching for. I checked it and immediately all the icons in explorer that had been MS Word changed to WordPerfect. That's what I wanted to see.

Thanks again.

Berton said:

When you get the Open with menu there usually is a checkbox at the bottom about Always use this program but some times one has to scroll the list to click a program name to get the box to show up. You can also get into Control Panel, Default Programs to change things. Just a note: even though I have Microsoft Office I also keep WordPerfect [since WP for Windows in '92] as there's a few things easier to accomplish versus Word.

Uh oh... Now they won't open at all!!!!!!!

Before, I could click the file, then right click, the choose WordPerfect, and the file would open in WordPerfect. After checking the box, none of the files with the WordPerfect icon will open at at. Effectively, at this point, I have lost all my files. There doesn't seem to be any way to open them.

Okey doke. How I long for the 20th century once more. I had neglected to register my email with WordPerfect. I didn't discover this until I tried to restart my computer, thinking that might solve the problem. I closed out all open programs one by one, but one would not close, the little blue WordPerfect box asking me to register. Once I sent them my email address, (that's all they asked for) then suddenly all the documents I'd been trying to open began popping up one after another.

For now, everything appears to be working.

Good Grief!

and thanks again

!!!!!!