Hi cranheim,

Simply changing a file's extension doesn't change its internal formatting and there's no guarntee the software to which the new extension applies will be able to open it.

Excel may have been able to open the file simply because it recognised the internal format and the extension change had nothing to do with it. You could probably get Excel to open an xlr file by simply starting Excel then dragging the file onto the running Excel session. The same might word with Word and Access for your Works wordprocessing and database files too.

Changing the file extensions is unlikely to harm any of your applications, but it will make it harder to identify which files are Works files and which are Office files.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]