Windows Media Player

I've only had Windows 8 a few days. I have word documents (.wps) I transferred from XP. The 1st time I tried to open the word docs I got that message "what do you want to use to open this" and it gave a few suggestions . I chose Windows Media Player, bad choice, of course WMP doesnt open window docs (does it?). Now when I try to open a word doc I get "Windows Media Player cannot play the file. The Player might not support the file type or might not support the codec that was used to compress the file." or "WMP encountered a problem...." My word docs have the WMP icon on them. How can I get WMP off my word docs so I can find another way of opening them and what is a good program/ap to open word docs.