How do I open an old wallet.dat file?

[jhbodle]

I'm sure this has happened to some of you guys on here - I have two old wallet.dat files backed up from 2011 and 2014. I don't know if there is anything in them, but I don't know how to find out. I have downloaded the latest bitcoincore 0.15.1 and replaced the wallet.dat file it creates with one of the old ones, but when trying to launch the program is says "Error opening block database". The wallet.dat file the program generates when installing it is over 1Mb in size, but my backed up wallet.dat files are only 88kb and 104kb. Is there any other way of finding out if these files have any bitcoin in them?

By the way - I have no idea what wallet program I used back then. I don't know how I would find out.

[jhbodle]

Don't worry, I found out how to do it - there was nothing in the wallet!

[slate_main]

Perhaps you could share your findings for others here, and in the future, of course you should not disclose delicate details...