How to open php files

[windy10]

Doing some family tree research a few years ago, I downloaded some .php files. Now I cannot open/view them.

Tried Notepad++ and Nice files from Microsoft store.

Neither will open the files, albeit they do but all I see is a load of readable codes.

But no image of whatever the file contains.

Any clues/tips

 

[Grizzly]

this may help:

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP is a popular general-purpose scripting language that powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

www.php.net

 

[Ian]

PHP is normally the sort of file that "runs" a script on a webserver when you're browing a website (this very page uses PHP). Hopefully the PHP files you downloaded are actually static pages, without code that requires PHP to run.

If you rename the .php files to .html, do they open OK in a browser when you double click on the file?

 

[sasafried]

Sometimes a web site may use a link to a web site archived copy
and change the original download example Uncle Bob.jpg that shows on a web page to fileff36.php

I would try to rename the file with an ending like:
somename.jpg
somename.png
somename.gif
somename.zip
somename.rar
somename.txt

If you know what type of file you were downloading at the time, all the better.
Rename it to that exact type.
It has worked for me.