Unfortunately, I have seen several people who check the boxes to make
OpenOffice the default program for M$ Office documents and then get
really irritated that M$ Office will no longer open when they
double-click on their documents.
I think the problem comes from a number of areas.
1. Most users (at least in the U.S.) never read setup guides. They
have been spoiled by plug and play software installations that do most
of the installation work for them.
2. Most users don't understand what "default" means. Most people that
I encounter think that it means a. to not pay one's bills on time or b.
that it is something bad that will hurt their computer
3. Most users have no idea what a file association or document
extension is. Microsoft makes this even more difficult by setting up
the default behavior on Windows 2000 and XP to hide extensions for known
file types
4. The OpenOffice installer does not provide a method at uninstall time
or when installation is re-run to unset file associations on a Microsoft
machine.
I agree with others that there are several things that could be done
with the OpenOffice installer to make things easier for the blatently
non-technical masses
1. Clearly define in simple language what default means and what it
means to set a file association
2. Provide a mechanism to change file associations to pre-installation
status for M$ Office documents through the options dialog inside OpenOffice
3. Provide a mechanism to change file associations back to the
pre-installation status by re-running the installer routine or during
uninstall.
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