Google is indeed my friend and yes I did a search before posting...I am looking for a way to OPEN .webloc files, not to convert them to .url files. One page suggested installing Safari for Windows but that does not work either, ironically enough.
I am going back and forth between Mac and WinXP all day (testing browser compatibilities) and it would be a blessing to my workflow if I could double-click a .webloc file in Windows to open it in SOMETHING.
The best info I found was here:
http://www.mail-archive.com/camino@mozdev.org/msg04084.html
This tells me that prior to 10.4, .webloc files stored the URL in the resource fork which required a converter to .url to get them to work in Windows. In 10.4 and 10.5, the .webloc format stores the URL in the data fork and so it should be trivial to open them correctly. Indeed, Firefox and IE display a "page source" style page that shows the URL. Safari for Win breaks.
I would think there is a shareware or freeware program somewhere in the universe that would allow me to, at a minimum, associate it with .webloc file extension in Windows, but I am not familiar with it.
Any other suggestions?