Word documents opening in Notepad

[Sara]

I just got a brand new Dell Insirpon 1520 laptap (2 GB of memory, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 80 GB hardrive) and when I try to open up links that are posted on the internet (i.e. my teachers post their lecture notes online in Word format for us to download), it opens up in Notepad, not Word and is jiberish.  Before I had put Microsoft Office on the computer, I was using Notepad to take notes and when I tried to download a lecture and it asks if you want to save or open the document, I think I changed the format that it would open in.  Problem is I can't figure out how to switch it back to Word.  The links that are posted in Powerpoint or any other format work fine, just Word is the problem.  I hope this makes some sense! Thanks!

[Fed]

Right click on the word document and choose Open With then Choose Program
Scroll down until you find Microsoft Word, select it and also tick the Check Box to always use this program to open these files with.

[JXY]

or you can right click the word document, properties, and change the 'open with' option

[Carbon Dudeoxide]

or you can right click the word document, properties, and change the 'open with' option

Then it will only open the word document in Microsoft Word only once.

If you do what Fed suggested and ticked the box, it will always open with MS Word..