new codes for formatting text

[ChristopherSea]

because somewhere in the code of openoffice is an instruction that tells the registry to open all files of that type with openoffice. a small price to pay for a freebie of such calibre considering you can change it en masse if you wish.
real player, wmp, and a host of other progs do the same.

Actually the code is in windows, it is under "file associations". When you install open office it changes the default for certain files (doc, docx, etc) to openoffice, it does nothing to the files themselves and it is easy enough to switch back.

Interestingly, it associated my doc's with open office (MS Office 2006 and older), but left my docx's alone (MS Office 2009 and newer). As you say, I can open them with either Open or Microsoft Office.