I've been a little more ruthless with saving my old format files (AtariWriter anyone? ) andhaven't bothered trying to convert any of my old format files to a new format. However, I can see where this would be a problem. I've used Star Office and now OpenOffice for over 5 years now, and haven't had any issues getting back to my old documents; they just work. This is the real onus for governments and public institutions wanting to adopt the Open Document Format. It's not that people hate Microsoft, it's that people hate having no way to get back to their old documents.