Windows 95/98 forum: problems with WordPad

Hi,

I have a number of WordPad documents that are several years old on thumbdrives, that were made with Windows 95 or 98. I used WordPad with the idea in mind that I would always be able to open them with WordPad, not knowing the horrible truth that WordPad often will not open WordPad documents. When I tried opening them with a later version PC at first I would get a message like:

Cannot open Word for Windows (6 something I believe) documents.

It seems that shouldn't apply to them, since they are WordPad documents not Word documents. Since they have been on the computer for a while things are now different. Now when I click on them they do open, but they show text only and anything that's bold, underlined, and all pictures now show up as just squares and different types of symbols. I'm afraid the computer has ruined them. If not, can anyone tell me if there's a way to get them back the way I made them to begin with, and get WordPad to open these WordPad documents? Or if WordPad won't open them, is there a program that will? Can anyone help me understand what's going on and how to make things right again? When I make new WordPad documents now with the new computer they work just fine, but the old ones don't. Is it a mistake to use WordPad at all, because in five years from now WordPad won't open the ones I'm making now anymore either...if WordPad is even still being included in five years?

Thanks for any help!
David