A customer had upgraded her PC from an old Windows 98 PC to Windows 7 (yep, a big jump).

In transferring her documents, I found the biggest hurdle was her old Microsoft Works documents.

Firstly, she hadn’t purchased Microsoft Office (and wasn’t keen on buying it, given that the salesman had told her the PC would have everything she needed…)

And secondly, she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t work on her existing documents with the new computer.

I must say, I understand how she feels. If you buy a computer thats at least 12 years newer, then it should be better than the old one in all respects…

In car terms, its like going from a 1960’s Mustang to a 2011 Mustang, only to find that the wheels are now optional…

Given that she hardly ever uses the web, uses emails occasionally, and uses the PC mostly for writing a book, then installing OpenOffice seems to be the best option.

I soon find out that OpenOffice will not read works documents.

Since there are only about 15 works documents, I quickly discover that the best way to convert the files is to use the website: www.zamzar.com

Its good for a handfull of documents, as it limits you to converting 6 documents at a time.

With 15 documents, I needed to do 3 conversion batches.

To do a much larger number of conversions, its worth looking at subscribing to zamzar.