If we had a dollar for every question we’ve received that starts out with “How do I open *.—– file type”, we’d be a lot better off financially than we are. But we don’t. But we do have a large number of emails asking how to open this file type or that file type. We understand the frustration. We can remember in the early days when we’d run into files that we had no idea how to open. What did we do? We didn’t open them. We grew up with the Web, in those days the Web was just starting and there wasn’t much available. Now it seems, there’s ten-times more stuff on the Web than anyone could ever use. That’s a good thing, it makes finding ways to open files that won’t open, a snap to open. And that “snap” just got a whole lot snappier.
We’ve found a little downloadable (free) tool that makes opening files that don’t have file associations easy. We’ll let the developer explain it below, and we’ll give you the skinny on where you can read more about OpenWith.org’s desktop tool. But first, pay heed, the developer is about to speak:
OpenWith.org Desktop Tool Instructions
1) Download and install the OpenWith.org Desktop Tool on your computer.
2) Right click on the file you don’t know how to open, and left click on “OpenWith.org – How do I Open This?”
3) If OpenWith.org knows about that type of file, you will see a list of compatible programs. If you already have one of the programs installed, it will say Installed. If not, it will say Download.
4) Select the program you want to use. If you are unsure, you can double-click on each program for more information.
5) If the program you want to use is already installed, skip to step 7
If the program you want to use isn’t already installed, click on the Download link. The program will now be downloaded.
6) Once the program is downloaded, a new folder will open with the installer. At this point, you need to run the installer to install the selected program.
We don’t do this automatically, because a lot of programs have user agreements that they want you to read. After you install the program, you will see Download change to Installed.
7) Once you have selected an installed program, simply click ‘Open’ to open the file.
So now that you know how it works, you probably want to learn more and we’re sure you want to download it, right? Visit this page to learn more about, see screen shots of, and/or download “OpenWith.org Desktop Tool”. Yes, it’s free, EB!
Once again I thought I was going to be able to open my sdw files but when I tried to install this program there was an error message “This program can only be installed on versions of Windows designed for the following processor architectures:
x86
SDW files are text document created with StarOffice Writer 5.0 or earlier (also known as “StarWriter”); the word processor included with Sun Microsystem’s StarOffice suite; may also be opened with the OpenOffice.org Writer program.
StarWriter documents created with StarOffice 6 or later use the .SXW extension.
infoave, thank you for replying here.
However, being aware of the points you made, and having been able to open those files until a few OO upgrades past, I can no longer do so on either of the Windows 7 desktop pcs in our house (I am able to do so on the Vista laptop) I don’t think the problem lies with the OO upgrades because the laptop also has upgraded OO installed.
Apache OO now installed on this computer, is crashing every time I try to open an SDW. Going to uninstall it and try again…
i got the same error message, Margaret. don’t know what’s up with that of if they monitor these boards to see comments. if they do, i’m sure we’ll hear from them soon about why.
It sounded too good to be true. I received the same message both of you did. Do you even know what it means? I hope someone responds positively to this.