Icon launches OS X application

Question

A friend has an older flat screen iMac. He only uses it for Word which is 2001 I think. All his desktop icons (where he store all his files!) have lost their "application type". They come with the error message that one must use os X to use this file. The files work fine when opened from the Word program but my friend is elderly and refuses to learn how to do this.
How do I fix this. Do I boot into X and change them with Get Info? Or ?

Answer 1

Hi, Lewis -
I did that. (have an alias of Word - os 9 on the desktop for opening the file icons) It does try to launch Word but the same error dialogue comes up saying that X must be running or some such.
The Word application may be of the Application Program Package type; many, but not all, of those have .app appended to the name of the program. Even though such a program looks and behaves like a program, it is actually a specialized folder containing both OSX and OS 9 versions of the program. An alias to a Package program will (in theory) activate the appropriate version of the program - sometimes it does not, for the same reason(s) that double-clicking files no longer starts up the correct version of a prgram.
The solution for the alias issue - open the Package, locate the OS 9 version of the program (it's often in a sub-folder named Classic), then make a fresh alias to it and place that alias outside the Package folder in a spot of your choosing.
To open the package, with the program not running control-click on the package (the program itself, not the alias) - one of the items that will appear in the contextual menu that opens is Show Package Contents. Select it, and the package will turn into a folder, which opens automatically.
Make the alias, place it, then close the folder - its icon should have a small image of a brown parcel (a "package") superimposed on it. Control-click on that folder and select "Hide Package Contents" from the contextual menu.
One of the characteristic behaviors of OS 9's Finder is that it will seek the newest version of a program in order to open a double-clicked file. If that newest version happens to be an OSX version, it will often try to use that. Of course, if OSX is not running then that program can't run - and you get the error message stating that.
Sometimes rebuilding the desktop will fix that - sometimes it won't, as you've experienced.
Often leaving the program (Word, in this case) open in the background will work - Finder will usually use a valid program that's running to open a double-clicked file before attempting to start up another.