How do I make old MS Works files compatible w/Win 10?

Fred22 said:

And now OpenOffice will not open, but I can open the docs. in Libre and they open as .odt files. I guess that will work.

Yes. ODT is the default for LibreOffice but you can use File, Save As and change to one of many formats supported.

A little personal history, I have LibreOffice on all my computers [several years now] not only because it's Open Source [Free] but it is Cross-platform, runs on Windows, macOS [former Mac OS X] and included with many of the various distributions of free Linux Operating Systems.

Berton said:

Yes. ODT is the default for LibreOffice but you can use File, Save As and change to one of many formats supported.

A little personal history, I have LibreOffice on all my computers [several years now] not only because it's Open Source [Free] but it is Cross-platform, runs on Windows, macOS [former Mac OS X] and included with many of the various distributions of free Linux Operating Systems.

.I thought .odt was the default for O.O. Is that correct? Oh BTW, OpenOffice is loading now (don't know why it wouldn't load yesterday), so I can create new docs. in O.O. and convert my old files (on my external HD). Thanks so much for your kind assistance.

Fred22 said:

.I thought .odt was the default for O.O. Is that correct? Oh BTW, OpenOffice is loading now (don't know why it wouldn't load yesterday), so I can create new docs. in O.O. and convert my old files (on my external HD). Thanks so much for your kind assistance.

It's the same for both programs, they have their roots from the same developers.

Berton said:

It's the same for both programs, they have their roots from the same developers.

That's great. Everything seems to be working very well. I did exactly as you recommended (load O.L., click open, etc,) and then I end up with the old .wps file (which I simply delete) and a new .odt file which is opened by O.O. At first almost every word of the new files were underlined with red "squiggley" lines, but I performed an operation that I learned on the O.O. Forum and now all is well. Thanks so much for hanging in there with me through this little saga and excuse me if I sounded aggravated, but this is a brand new Lenovo desktop w/8gb ram and 1tb hard drive. It's a great and very fast pc and I want it to run perfectly. Thanks again.

Good to hear you can convert your Works files now.

You may find this interesting, the How-To Geek explains the common ancestry of Libre Office and Open Office.

It doesn’t really matter whether you use LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice. Both are good choices if you’re looking for a powerful free office suite. The two projects are so similar that you’d be unlikely to notice the difference.
We’d recommend LibreOffice if we had to choose one of the two. It’s seen the most enthusiastic development and has the most potential in the long run.

OpenOffice vs. LibreOffice: What’s the Difference and Which Should You Use?

Very good...now I have both and both are working.

I realize this is an old thread but is relevant.

I have some MS Works files & want to access them on a Windows 10 PC. From what I've seen, some people are able to get MS Works to install & function on Windows 10 and others cannot. My friend has it on one PC but cannot get it to install on another as he gets an error about installing IE6. I'm reluctant to install MS Works because it might work today but stop functioning due some some future Windows 10 update. Is there a known reason why only sometimes MS Works will properly install or work?

I was hoping to find a modern replacement for MS Works & tried the LibreOffice Portable version as mentioned in this thread & it does open the .wps files from MS Works.

However it does not open the .wdb database files properly & instead opens them in a spreadsheet. I also tried LO on some .accdb database files from MS Access and it just displayed a lot of characters.

Is there a defacto or preferred database file format that's generally accepted, sort of like .doc is for word processor documents?

Thanks