Computer may lack Excel

Reader mail fills the box today. Let's answer some of your pressing general-interest questions.

Q. I manage a Little League baseball team, and the league keeps sending me attachments in XLS format, which I think are Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but when I double-click on them, my computer says I don't have any program on my computer to open them.

A. Two things could be going on here. You could have Excel, but it may be a trial version and not fully installed or expired. Go to the start menu and look under Microsoft Office and see if you have Excel as an option. Launch it from there and see if it fully launches. What I suspect, however, is that you don't really have Excel on your computer. I suspect you really have Microsoft Works and perhaps Word, as well. So you can purchase Excel or download Open Office for free at www.openoffice.org.

Q. How can I tell how much memory my computer has installed in it?

A. Assuming you have a Windows box, right click on My Computer on your desktop and hit Properties.

Q. If I have all of my e-mail in Outlook 2003 and I upgrade to Outlook 2007, will I lose all of my e-mails, contacts and settings?

A. No, your settings should be intact. However, you should always back up your data to PST files before you do any sort of upgrades to your client. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

Q. Now that Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has been released, I have installed it, but I don't notice much of a difference in my system or its performance. In fact, I don't notice much at all. What should I be seeing?

A. If you have been patching all along, not a lot really, from the visible perspective. There is quite a lot going on under the hood, however. There are quite a few improvements in speed and security, so it is worth installing. In my experience, I find the upgrade works the best if your computer has at least two gigabytes of RAM. In some cases, the performance from file copying actually has decreased, according to lab tests, so clearly Microsoft has some work to do.

Q. When support for Windows XP ends in June, will we still be able to buy XP on new computers?