My older laptops had versions of Word that had been bundled in, so I wasn't getting dunned to use them

And I actually have WordPerfect on my older laptop. That's my favorite word processing program. When we switched over to Microsoft stuff, at work, I was very unhappy.

My new laptop doesn't have a DVD/CD drive, so I couldn't load it but my nephew clued me in to Google Docs/Sheets. They work fine for what I need.

I've never heard of LibreOffice. I'll have to check that out.

but places I worked used Office. I don't know he last time I used WP.

I did a lot of writing, at one time, and my comfort level was much higher on WP.

We also used to use the Lotus spreadsheet program, which I really, REALLY preferred to Excel. Fortunately my need for spreadsheets has diminished to almost nil but if I do need one, it's a simple one so I fumble through Sheets and it seems to be sufficient for my minimal needs.

I've been through a number of hard drive crashes since I upgraded two versions ago, and am wondering about upgrading to this "temporary" laptop.

Best thing about WP is "Reveal Codes" Every so often you get to a spot in a document in LO or Word where the formatting drives you nuts. With Reveal Codes I'm able to find the offending command and kill it.

I think it is far and beyond a much more versatile and user friendly program than MS Word. I also preferred Lotus to Excel.

Use the option: Open with, make sure the choice “Always open with” is checked, and then open with WordPad.

There is another way to achieve what you want by going into “File Associations” and setting WordPad to open .rtf files.

There may be yet a third option if you open WordPad and check to see if the preferences menu lets you set file associations.

I'll save your solution, in case LibreOffice fails me

Was going to say this, but you said it first.

>> "default Apps" >> "Choose Default Apps by File Type" you get a bazillion extensions (most of which you never heard of). You can pick ".rtf", ".doc" and others to be opened by Libre Office. Or WordPad, if you want.

Right clicking does pretty much the same thing, but one file at a time.

BTW, I've been using LibreOffice as my default for years-- it's rock solid so far.