by foxcole » Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:29 pm
It's not anything you're doing right or wrong. It's the fact that Works in general is not compatible with other programs and Works 95 is so old that no newer technologies are likely to support it, as you've discovered. Works 95, even if you had the original program, is unlikely to be able to run on a newer OS.
When Windows XP first came out, a tool was made available that would set XP to be able to run older programs. I don't think that's possible directly with Vista, but maybe you could try installing an older OS version alongside Vista. I know that's possible for running old DOS programs, and I know it's possible to emulate an Apple IIe OS to run on Winows, so it surely must be possible with Win95. Once that's in place, it's possible you might find a copy of Works 95 somewhere. At least half a dozen websites exist that offer old software versions. I think oldversion.com might be one.
If I had more time right now I'd go look and see what I could dig up, but I'll be leaving here shortly so will trust that to you or someone else for now, with my apologies.
Good luck! It might turn out to be kind of fun, if you run across any old games or other bits of nostalgia.
On the other hand, if what I'm suggesting turns out to be too much work or is not something you want to do, you might need to turn to a hex editor that will open any file, and see if you can extract the text that way. It won't bring across formatting or images, but you might at least salvage some content.
Cheers!
---Fox
OOo 3.2.0 Portable, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit