Open the file explorer and click the View tab. Check the box for "File name extensions". Then go to the folder that contains your wallet.dat.txt file, it should show the whole file name, including the extension. Right click it and select Rename and rename the file to just wallet.dat without the .txt file extension. It should give you a warning, and just click OK. Then that should work now in the Bitcoin data directory.
Currently working on importing the .dat into a digital wallet. Was unable to import via blockchain.info/wallet/import-wallet, so right now I'm waiting for bitcoin-qt to synch, which seems to require a long time.
Hopefully I will be able to finish solving this puzzle on my own. Either way, I'll return here to either report success or ask for more help. I joined a few other forums in my quest for the 1 BTC, so I plan to report back to all.
Thanks a bunch for the help.