Excel 2007 Import from text on XP vs 7

An XP user in my office must go "Data -> From text -> (select file) -> Open" in order to import text into an excel spreadsheet. A windows 7 user, however, does not need to import the text file from Excel. All the windows 7 user must do is open the text file, and it automatically presents itself in the spreadsheet without having to import from excel.

Weird thing is, on MY windows 7 machine, opening the same text file goes right to text, so... how does the windows 7 user's PC *know* to open the text file in excel? Excel is NOT the default program for text files. Right-clicking and opening with excel does in fact open it in excel, but not so in XP. In XP right-clicking and opening with excel just launches excel but doesnt open the file (just see blue screen with option to open a file). The XP user MUST have excel open, and then import.

Is this an operating system variance? all searches to find an answer to this say that my XP user is doing the right thing, implying that the Windows 7 user conveniently doesn't have to go through the steps in the import-from-text process to get the same end result.

Please advise, i dont know why this would be so stubbornly different between the two OSs.

Thankya thankya

1. yes on the XP machine, no on the w7 machine
2. both have excel 2007

I apologize if my question was a little convoluted. I want to be able to right-click text files and open with excel on the XP machine in the same way that I can on the W7 machine.

As it stands now, it is slightly more convenient to open a text file on windows 7. Being able to open it in XP requires that you go into excel first.

yea that's what i (sort of) thought, the ladies needing to open the text files on their respective computers seem to think that this difference is the biggest deal in the world...

thanks for your response, much appreciated

and if anyone else has input, that too would be welcome!