I think file access permissions as suggested by others should solve your problems, but if you need a viewer you could try internet explorer. I use it for log files via: 'explorer path_to_logfile.txt'. An additional benefit is for live log files you can hit the refresh button to update the logfile and see what's changed. As an aside, I'm not sure why that command launches IE, I'm running XP and the TXT file associations don't refer to IE. If I try 'start path_to_logfile.txt' I get the file opened in notepad, which is the Open file association.