Default Setting for Productivity Suites

I have a question regarding how documents open as a default when a computer has multiple productivity suites on it. Example, my MBP currently has the following installed: iWork '08, Office for Mac 2004, NeoOffice and the recently added OpenOffice Beta (I know, I'm very "productive").

I have docs created & saved in M$ Office as .doc, .ppt and .xls files that, when I click on them to open, have recently been opening in other formats (primarily OpenOffice). I previously had that problem when trying to open .doc formatted files which were created & saved in M$ Office, but opened in Abiwrite or Bean (both since deleted from my system). The really strange part is, I never (knowingly) established Bean, Abiword or OO as my "default" for opening such documents - heck, I'm not even sure if I can set any of them as such. Also, the opening in a different program does not happen immediately after I install a new program. With Abiword and Bean, it began happening months after I installed them.

I know in Leopard I can open any file in another format by dragging the file over the icon of the preferred program, but I am simply looking to see how to open a file in the program it was created/saved in from the Finder/desktop simply by clicking on the file. Has anyone had this happen to them? Any ideas?? And please, no commentary on how NeoOffice/OO can do the same job, etc. I have my reasons for trying to keep some of these docs separate and I'm just looking for a fix or solution. Many thanks.

 

Outstanding! Many thanks!