First, thank you for your help.

WordPad is installed. I can first open WordPad and then identify the file I
want to open and it will open OK. It's only when I click on the file in
Explorer that I have the problem.

The files I have the problem with are information I have copied from the
internet that has a little bit of formatting, tabs, spacing, etc., that I
want to retain. I have been doing this so long I don't remember if I ever
tried notpad.
The only other thing I know is that if I copy the same information using
Windows Internet Explorer it will not retain the formating, that is why I use
the copy command in Firefox. Maybe this is the problem, however this works
OK in windows XP but not the the machine I am currently using which is 98SE.
Again, thanks.

"Gary S. Terhune" wrote:

Possibly, you haven't got WordPad installed. It's an optional item in
Add/Remove Program, Windows Setup tab, Accessories section (highlight
Accessories and click on Details.)

Use find to look for WordPad.exe. Does it exist on your machine? If so,
what's the pull path to it?

Note that normally, TXT files open with Notepad unless they are over 64KB,
in which case you are prompted to use WordPad. Do you really want your TXT
files associated with WordPad, or do you want things to be the way they're
"supposed" to be? Note that editing certain types of plain text files in
WordPad instead of Notepad, specifically system configuration files,
scripts, etc., can cause them to not work anymore, since WordPad will insert
formatting characters that mess things up if it's not set correctly. IOW,
it's much safer to use Notepad for most TXT or other plain text files.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User