Can anyone give a non-geek simple instructions on how to disable the registry policy setting?

[TygrBright]

I am trying to open a very elderly MS Word Document (1996!) using Word 2007 and apparently when I installed MS Office 2007, some kind of default in the registry tags real old stuff as possible malware. Or whatever. I'm being charitable here.

Anyway, I have looked at the relevant "knowledge base article," I have Googled "disable registry policy" and everything that comes up assumes that I am a professional IT administrator at a large facility with multiple groups of users doing complex and potentially dangerous tasks.

There's just me on this computer. I'm not an IT professional

Help, help!

hopefully,
Bright

[Duer 157099]

1. which version of Win? XP? Vista? n/t

[TygrBright]

2. Vista Premium, alas...

[Duer 157099]

3. ah, then I cannot help, I'm only up to WinXP

although the process might be the same/similar, but I don't want to steer you the wrong way...

Someone will come along who knows, you'll see

[TygrBright]

4. Thanks for the consideration, anyway!

[EvolveOrConvolve]

5. I found this article that might help

http://domino.lancs.ac.uk/pub/usghelpdesk.nsf/aff64e3ca4d862fd80256801006e0a22/4F5066BCD7A2AE308025737600322B2F?OpenDocument

It requires you to install Open Office to open the document, but it's a pretty painless thing, and you then have that ability in the future should you need it.

You can also try to open the document in WordPad. To do that, right-click the file and select Open With. If WordPad isn't an option, you can select the Choose Program (or something along those lines - I'm working off memory right now). Then, select WordPad. If WordPad isn't one of the options given to you, click the Browse button. WordPad on my Vista machine is located at "C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\wordpad.exe". WordPad has been around since at least Windows 98, and was probably included with Windows 95. It can read RTF (Rich Text Format) documents, and a lot of the older Word programs used a variant of the basic RTF protocol. It's worth a try before you try downloading Open Office.

[canetoad]

6. If all you need is the content

and not the formatting, make a copy of the file, change the file extension to .txt and ignore any dire warnings. It will open in notepad or any text editor and you can copy and paste the contents.

[trotsky]

7. Here is a Knowledge Base article from Microsoft

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922849/

Two ways to do it - put the doc in a "trusted location" (Office button, Word Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, Trusted Locations. You can see what the current trusted locations are, or add a new one.

Or edit the registry as specified in the article.

[TygrBright]

8. DU Comes Through Again! Thank you trotsky, canetoad, Evolve, and DUer 157099!

Why I love this place--

It's a community, dangit. Ya send up an SOS, and someone's there.

Bless y'all.

I was not keen on messing with the registry since I am not an admin-type geek, and your work-arounds have allowed me to resurrect those ancient documents without worry.

Many thanks!

appreciatively,
Bright