opening of files

hi all
sometime ago i had a problem with my pc and i took it to get it repaired and what i was told was that i may lose some of the items that i had on the pc but he would try his best to recover whatever he could.
when i got the pc back what he recovered for me he put into a file on my desktop.
me not being to brilliant on a pc i thought it was just the matter of clicking on the file and opening it, not that easy it was telling me i needed to find the programme that (i believe) created the file.
a majority of them are DAT files.
can anyone please advise (in a simple was as possible) what i need to do or is there anything on here i could download to help me open them?
thanks to all that reply!!!
paul

 

I'm no expert on .dat files but I believe they are just containers for any type of file. Is there any clue from the name of any of the files that tells you what they are or how they were created? What type were the other files--any clues there?

Maybe give a call back to the shop and ask what they use?

You could give 7-zip a quick try but I didn't have any luck using it on a few random .dat files I had.

 

.dat files are just data files.

You will need to find out what he used to copy or recover. You obviously are not linked to that program or double clicking would open them.

It is possible that it is just a text file. Try opening in notepad, or similar.

If you choose details, you can see the extensions for all the files in the folder. This may help you to decipher which files are which. It is possible that there is an exe in that file too. I would not go clicking anything without discussing it with the tech that did the work for you.

It is best to be cautious.