How to open .DAT file

[GunFighter]

Hi,

I have downloaded one file which is of a size 56 MB of .DAT format, when I try to open the file it gives me only one option "open with" and shows the list of application available for opening an application. such as Notepad,Excel,Adobe an all that, But the problem was that before downloading that same .DAT file it was showing as Video file, and now i am not able to open that.

Please someone tell me how to open the .DAT file

Thanks for your help

[Tweaker]

Hi,

If you have seen the file earlier that is while downloading in the video format then convert that file into the video file and check whether that works, or from where you have downloaded there it may be mentioned what type of format will be.Because you cannot predict the file format if it comes from unknown software,because A .DAT file could be anything...If you don't know what software created it then your best bet is to open it in a hex editor.

Regards

[Pauline]

The first thing to understand about .DAT files is that it indicates a file that has arbitrary data. That means it’s not associated with any one particular program or application. When you see a file with a .XLS extension, you know it’s referring to an Excel file, and so on.

The best way to open a .DAT file is to use the program that created it. However, if you’re not sure, you can always try Notepad. Now when you open it in Notepad, you may be able to recognize some of the data, but the rest will most likely be junk spewed out by the program that created it.

For some strange reason, some email programs
automatically change the file extension on email attachments to .DAT. So if the person sent you a picture and now it’s a .DAT file, you first need to save it to your computer and then change the file extension to JPG or GIF or PNG or whatever you think it’s supposed to be. If they sent you a Word document, change it to .DOC, etc.

You can change the file extension on a file by first going to My Computer, clicking on Tools and then Folder Options.
Next click on the View tab and then scroll down to the option “Hide extensions for known file types” and UNCHECK it. In this way, we’ll now be able to see the file extension and change it to something else.
Now simply right-click on the .DAT file and change the file extension after the dot to the desired file format.

[Dodge]

Follow the following steps

1. Start Notepad (or a better .txt editor, like Editpad).
   
2. Open the .DAT-file.
   
3. If this succeeds, try to spot clues in the file to figure out what kind of data you are dealing with. Proceed accordingly.
   
4. If you couldn't open the .DAT file with a text-editor (Notepad), try as many other programs as you like.
   Suggested programs to open the .DAT file:
   
   • MS Word or Excel (because some .DAT file's are comma-separated-value (.CSV) files.
   • .DAT files could also be MS Outlook-files.
   • You could also try an IDE (Itegrated Development Environment, a programmers tool)
   .