thanks, opening the program in Cimco worked. after reading a bit more, now that i know what i'm looking, i'll contact Mastercam tech support and see if they can offer a solution for me to convert my NC files to NCI files. I really am unsure what the old programs are doing. thanks again. 

hey folks, I'd like to start by apologizing if i'm not clear in what i'm asking but i'm very new to mastercam. I have recently upgraded my PC and installed mastercam 2018, the problem i"m having now is that i can't access the old mastercam programs we have made. i get a prompt about a format not recognized by mastercam. Can anyone offer any insight as to how i can remedy this? thanks