Geoff, I can't single out one particular reply as the one which caused the penny to drop.

I realise now that I was doing this in an unnecessarily complicated way when I started doing the YouTube thread three months ago. I do remember that Google desktop featured in the process, but I really don't want to retrace the steps ...I do remember that what I was doing then worked in IE but not using the AOL browser.

However, by reading all these posts I realise now that (in AOL at any rate) all I have to do to open the file is click on FILE in the toolbar and then on the filename. This I assume is the AOL shortcut to Windows Explorer.

As Malcolm stated above, it really is childishly simple (once you understand it)