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What's a '.dat' file?

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Hi!!...How do I read o see the contents of a *.dat file?....Wich program can I use for open it?
Thnaks.

Posted by: Gonzalo at August 29, 2004 11:41 AM

As stated in the article you just commented on: there's no way to know.

Posted by: Leo at August 29, 2004 11:47 AM

i would like to open my dat file. the problem is dont know what program to use can any one help. thanks......

Posted by: raheem at October 25, 2004 8:09 AM

open with notepad

Posted by: Anonymous at November 1, 2004 8:06 PM

What would be the purpose of sending information to the *.dat file rather than sending it to the database?

Posted by: Trish Clark at November 16, 2004 5:56 PM

A .dat file could *be* the applications database. There's just no way to know how it's used or what it contains.

Posted by: Leo at November 16, 2004 8:53 PM

Thank you for the reply - next question can I use Crystal reports to generate reports from a .dat file? We use Oracle, sqlbase, sqlserver, access but I have never had to assist a customer with a system using .dat files so I am treding on new ground! Thank you in advance.

Trish

Posted by: Trish Clark at November 17, 2004 3:21 AM

There's no way to know. It depends on the application that has created the .dat file.

Posted by: Leo at November 17, 2004 12:37 PM

i have a few dat files that i want to open. tried opening them with notepad but that didn't work. they are conversations that were automatically saved when chatting on yahoo messenger. how can i open these up?

Posted by: lynne at November 18, 2004 4:55 AM

Normally a .dat file should only be opened using the application that created it, or an application that is compatible with it. In fact here's a note from the Yahoo messenger help page:

"Please Note: Archives (.dat files located on your system) are encrypted and can only be viewed by the Yahoo! ID that created them. These archives are stored locally on your system, so the conversations held on that specific computer are only accessible from that computer. Once archives are deleted, they cannot be retrieved."

Posted by: Leo at November 18, 2004 11:10 AM
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