Re-installing Works on Pavilion dv7 M430

[hlhalliburton]

When I bought my new laptop I also bought Office 2010 so when I was setting my laptop up I removed Microsoft Works thinking I wouldn't have any need for it.

Well, now my mom is sending me a CD full of files that she made up using Works Database and I'm unable to read the file she emailed me.  Does anyone know how I can open these files? install the Works program that was pre-installed on my laptop?

Any suggestion would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Heidi

[cnfrisch]

No need to install Microsoft Works.  Instead, please review:  Move from Microsoft Works to Microsoft Office 2010

[CherylG]

Nice,Carey. I wasn't aware of that.

[hlhalliburton]

I'm sorry, I guess  should of mention, the database files have the extension of .wdb  what program would I use to open that format?

Heidi

[cnfrisch]

The answer is that you can not open a Works Database and expect it to be a database with anything but Works.

In order to read a .wdb file, the recomended procedure is to open it in Works and save it as a DBF (Dbase IV) file.

http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/2000/acworks.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/off2000/html/achowImportMSWorksData...

If you wanted to be bold, you might take the file, make a copy and try to open it with a text editior.  Your data might be in a format that you could read and parse out to an ASCII file.