How do I recover files in word that open as scrambled symbols and letters?

I over the course of this past year upgraded my equipment from an HP Compaq621 laptop running Win7 Home edition (I think it was home edition, it came with all the office apps) to a desktop running Win10 Home edition in an attempt to get semi up to date on hardware in preparation for working from home. I have just about got settled in now and have been conducting digital hygiene in an effort to purge old files no longer needed and taking up valuable real estate. The problem is, and I've noticed this happening before, the last time I transitioned between machines, old files from another operating system don't open properly on the new system. On the old machine, I had Microsoft Word installed on my machine and the file itself in physical possession saved on my drive. When the file was transferred over to the new machine it sat there for a while before I got to it and now I'm trying to deal with this.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Both systems were up to date when file transfers occurred.