You need to be much more specific. As pointed out, we can't see what you can see. You are omitting important facts. Not many peeps are familiar with the details of AOL. If you want help, which we can certainly supply, you need to spell everything out.

creates a file type that Windows cannot open.
What file type? Is it .EML?
If so you need an email client installed on your PC to read them properly. However they are ordinary text files and can be seen in flat mode by opening them with NOTEPAD.
1999: Freeserve 48K Dial-Up => 2005: Wanadoo 1 Meg BB => 2007: Orange 2 Meg BB => 2008: Orange 8 Meg LLU => 2010: Orange 16 Meg LLU => 2011: Orange 20 Meg WBC