Programs cannot be copied over, they need to be "installed". If you didn't get a CD for the MS Office, perhaps all you had was the free Trial version (that expires in, I believe, 90 days).  If you paid extra for MS office then contact Dell about getting the Office CD, but if it was not something you paid extra for when you bought the PC it is most likely just the Trial version. 

 

The current Home and Student version of Office 2007 is your least expensive way to get the office functions or you can purchase MSWorksSuite which has MS Word.

Microsft Word is the defacto standard used in most business applications for wordprocessing, as is Excel for spreadsheets, etc.  Microsoft Works is a suite of programs, similar to the Microsoft Office suite of programs but they are not the full feature programs like Office and they are not 100% compatible with the Office programs.  Consider you have buy MS Works for about $39 where MS Office starts at about $250 and goes up depending on which version (except the special Home and Student Edition (that does not have all the Office applications) which is about $139).

 

Then there is the MS WorksSuite, suite of programs that includes MS Word, the MSWorks versions of spreadsheet and database and several other programs.  WorksSuite is around $100 (may be discounted less some places).

 

MS Office

 

MS WorksSuite

 

MS Works V8

The "doc" files are the standard MS Word format files (except Word 2007 but Word 2007 will save as a doc).  The "native" WordPerfect file is something else (wps or something similar).   You can save files a MS Word "doc" files in WordPerfect but all of your wordprocessor formatting may not be saved, thus when someone opens the file with MS Word there may be parts of it that are garbled.  The same way if someone with MS Word opens a WordPerfect wps file (Word has capabilities of opening some versions of WordPerfect files) but they may have some garbled characters in them.  I've worked both ways with WordPerfect and MS Word and could never get a complete "clean" conversion between the two.

 

MS Office does not have "WordPad".  WordPad is a basic wordprocessor that is part of WINDOWS XP which is your operating system.   MS Office is not included with Windows XP, it is a separate suite of programs.  Did you click on the links I provided which details the differences in the various suites?

 

The Adobe reader is ONLY for displaying and saving Adobe "PDF" files.  It is not a Microsoft Product  and is only for the proprietary Adobe files.

GodBlessAmerica,

 

If you still have your old HD, you could clone it to your new drive.  This would allow you to retain use of your Microsoft Word program, as well as all other programs that were installed on the old hard drive.

 

I assume, of course, that when you upgraded your hard drive you used the same type; i.e., PATA (IDE) or SATA.  Most new drives come with bootable CDs that will allow you to clone your hard drive partition(s), or do a sector by sector transfer.  You can also clone your 80Gb, single-partition drive to a much larger, say 160Gb single-partition drive.  Many hard drive manufacturers allow you to install their software, i.e., Maxblast 3 for a new Maxtor hard drive, on your old drive from a different manufacturer, boot from that drive and clone the old bootable drive to the new bootable drive. 

 

On occasion, I have run into minor problems when cloning a drive to a larger or different type of drive, but that can usually be fixed by running a repair install of XP on the new drive. 

 

Beats the heck out of reinstalling all those programs or wracking your brain trying to figure out just where you stored your original CDs so you wouldn't lose them.

 

The computer I'm currently using has been upgraded from a 20GB to a 40Gb to an 80Gb to its present 160Gb hard drive without ever reinstalling any of the programs currently installed at the time of each cloning. 

 

Hope this info helps.

 

Tony

KY331,

 

Good point.  I recommend Open Office quite often to parents who can't afford even the Microsoft Office Student Edition.  Many working class folks, especially single moms with deadbeat dads, can barely afford the relatively inexpensive computer systems available today.

 

Tony