Computing Support

Viewing attachments sent in Email

Q: Someone has sent me an attachment in email, but the icon just looks like a blank page and when I double click on it, a little box on the screen says there is no program associated with the file. How can I read the attachment?

A: In Windows, certain file extensions are associated with specific programs so the operating system knows how to open and read the file without the user having to open the application first. Any file with *.DOC is opened with Word, *XLS is opened with Excel, *TXT is opened with notepad, etc. but if the file does not have an associated extension, double clicking on the file will bring up the message you mention. You have a couple of options:

• Right click on the icon and choose save as
• Save

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