can someone please help me out here?

Have you tried opening them with notepad? or Wordpad?

Depending on if the information is in raw or formated code you might be able to view them in either editor.

I have tried with notepad & wordpad & unfortunatley the information is encoded.

I was told that a program called spider 1.16 would work but I haven't had any success.

Ok, this program will let you view .dat files, I just downloaded it and tried it out ... so I really don't know to much about it beyond the fact that: It reads .dat files & is Virus Free

Worked ok on my XP machine and says it works on all versions of Windows you might want to take a look.

http://download.com.com/3000-2352-10126956.html?tag=lst-0-2

They are usually not ment to be user readable data. They are usually ment so only the program can read them you may try a hex editor but beware if you do that dont change anything unless you know what you are doing could potential screw up the whole program