I have some MS Word documents that have been saved and opened and worked without any issues on an earlier version of windows 7. Now having windows 11 Pro, when I try to open them, they are opening up through word pad. Any particular reason for this? How can I get it fixed?

Do you have MS OFFICE installed on your new computer?

If you haven’t, it might be a fall back to WORD PAD.

If you do have Word, right click the file > Open With > select Word. if will probably ask if you want to change all of that file type to open with Word

with this new laptop, I didn't have MS word installed on in. with this new operating system, and windows 11 Pro that now uses Microsoft 365, I had to purchase the 365 Personal profile which has all the apps with it. Problem solved.... guess I am just a little old school....