Open as Binary , gr !

[Edneeis]

Try something like this:

Dim fs As IO.FileStream = New IO.FileStream(filename, IO.FileMode.Open)'open file
        Dim br As New IO.BinaryReader(fs)'read as binary
        Dim b() As Byte = br.ReadBytes(fs.Length)'now the contents are in a byte array
        Dim str As String = System.Text.Encoding.ASCII.GetString(b)'convert byte array to string
        br.Close()'close file
        fs.Close()