Where do these .dat file come from? Several of our programs contain such files. Some files are not associated with online services. On opening said files, they all open the same program but can not open any files, says no file can be opened. Can we delete these .dat files through File Manager or would we be messing up something? What use are these .dat files and where do they come from to locate themselves throughout so many programs? Can anyone out there help?

NO!! Don't delete them! These are files that programs use to store data. If you open it in a text editor, they sometimes are readable.

i would heed Eric's warning if i were you... (that is unless you want to start having random problems, losing data and having to reinstall everything...)

Thanks for your responses!

I would like to open a *.dat file.But I can't . I opened it with a notepad and I can't read it.It has strange symbols on it. Can anyone tell me if there is some program that can open a *.dat files, please? Thank you

A dat file is holding data (seems obvious right). You can try to open it with a text editor but you might not get all teh information (re: strange symbols). Just as if you opened a .doc file in notepad (without converting it to ASCII) you'd get symbols.

OK, when an email comes in and I need to open it, and it ends in .dat what do I do? Can I tell the person sending the file to do something different? He does not know how it becomes a dat file anyway. Help please