For those having file-recognition problems, and maybe blaming it all on 
the Mac's PC file-exchange software, Easy Open, etc., here's another 
(related) possibility...

>>QT-3 installs some sort of file use filter so that applications
>>can't access files they don't own! When an application attempts
>>to access a file for which it is not the creator a dialog box
>>pops up "suggesting" alternative applications that own the file
>>and preventing _YOU_ from accessing it. This is ridiculous and
>>I'm amazed that nobody else is complaining. In my case it means
>>that applications attempting to read "foreign" TEXT files are
>>prevented from doing so. The QT-3 documentation is as skimpy
>>as can be, and I couldn't figure out how to get rid of this damn
>>thing without getting rid of QT-3 ... which I had to do or otherwise
>>I can't get any real work done on my machine.
>
>Now that you mention it...
>
>Yes I have noticed that since I installed QT3 that the Finder does not seem
>to be allowing me to access things properly. It is the foreign files that
>are causing me grief as well. Both graphics files that were not created
>with the application I intend to use and the text file problem you
>mentioned. 
>
>I never made the QT3 connection until you mentioned it. I just thought that
>something had become corrupted and I was not able to find it. 

and another reply:

>I wonder if it's tied in some way to another new Finder behavior under QT
>3. If you take any ordinary text file and append the extension .mov to its
>name, its icon will change to a MoviePlayer document and its Kind in Get
>Info will also change to that. Checking in File Buddy, the former text
>file's creator code will appear as TVOD, with a MooV type code. Removing
>the .mov extension from a file so altered does not revert it back to a text
>file either. Apparently, this is intended to allow movies that are served
>up from a PC, where there are no types and creators to be handled better.
>I find that this auto-no-so-magic behavior occurs even though I don't have
>Macintosh Easy Open enabled. I would guess that QT 3 does this via some
>pretty skanky method with unintended side effects.

I have noted that some files, if left on the desktop, "vibrate"... their 
icons seem to fluctuate between the "movieplayer" icon and a plain 
document icon, every few seconds, while the Mac seemed sluggish to 
respond. I _think_ these may have been text files with a .mov extension, 
but I don't have one handy to try it out. When it last happened, I was 
rushed (as usual) and just threw the file away...

Bill