Jim -
Some people have mentioned Open Office. A couple of years back, the company which sponsored Open Office was bought by others and the free development of the software was in doubt. Because of this, the software developers created Libre Office, which essentially took the standing free Open Office and then continued to update and improve it under a different name.
Their aim is to keep it as up to date as possible and compatible with any new Word document format, but to also retain the ability to import and edit documents produced by older software.
It is probably your best option for opening your old files.

If you are using a Windows PC, I would refer you to http://portableapps.com/. This is a suite of applications which can be run from a USB stick, a plug in hard drive or simply a folder stored anywhere on your PC. All the settings are stored locally and don't "install" anything on your PC.
I find that almost everything I need can be done using the portable apps. About the only thing I install and run on the computer is anti-virus software.

Quack!
GtD.