WordPad and Notepad are both plain text file editors. Neither of them is likely to do a decent job of opening a Word document of any kind. Neither of them actually is likely to be too accurate about even identifying the filetype for anything containing non-alpha characters.

If, by chance, you got a new Works or Word with your new WinXP setup, it's unlikely to be Word 6.0, but a Word 6.0 file should be easilty importable into any later Word version. Word 6, IIRC, was the first Windows version of Word, and it did use a somewhat different file format than more recent versions.

Recent versions of Works include Word 2000, and it is (reported to be) the full Word version. Recent common Office versions run from about Word 2000 thru Word 2003 or later. All versions should be able to open files from all other versions, but you may need to install an import filter for the specific combination you have to deal with. When you install a recent office version, it should ask if you want to install a whole bunch of such import/export patches, but many people don't put them all on. Fewer filters may be included with Works than with Office.

Check out the Office Downloads site and look for an appropriate import filter for your new Word version, and the file should open easily. Among other possibles, there's an "Office Converter Pack" under "Popular Downloads" there; but whether it's useful to you will depend on what programs you currently have installed to bring your old doc into.

If you don't have any version of Word on your new setup, you probably can still install Word 6.0 on WinXP (if you have the disks?), if you open Properties on the .exe file and set "Run As Win98." Word 6.0 installation, according to vague long-ago recollection, doesn't actually require any Registry info to be able to run, so you may (or may not) be able to just copy the Word 6 program files to your new installation and get it open long enough to open your file and do a save as text. (No guarantees that Word 6 will run properly if just copied and not installed, but I think I did it once. If I did, it was at least 15 years ago.)

John