When attempting to open email attachments in WordPad the following message appears: ‘Wordpad has caused an error in MSWRD832.CNV. Wordpad will now close’. Restarting the computer has not resolved the issue.

There could be numerous reasons for this error occurring. I assume you are attempting to open Word .DOC files in WordPad. Firstly, depending on the version of Windows you are running (which will dictate the version of WordPad installed), and the version of Word used to create the Word files, you may be attempting to open Word files which were created in a version of Word not compatible with WordPad. A Microsoft Knowledge Base article (support.microsoft.com/kb/276337) explains how to work around this issue, but unfortunately both solutions require you to have Word installed on the computer. Since you appear not to have Word installed (otherwise I imagine you would be opening the attachments in Word, as opposed to WordPad) you may not be able to implement these workarounds. However, some alternative solutions are available. You could download the free Word Viewer 2003 (www.microsoft.com/downloads) which allows you to open, print and copy Word files should you not have Word installed. Alternatively, you could download and install OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) which is a free, open-source office package able to read Word files (plus other Office formats, such as Excel). As this is an office package, you can also create and modify documents.