[Scott M.[_2_]]

And how does that get them from friend's computer to OP's computer?

Email? Remember we're talking about less than 1.44 MB of data.

2b. Because Word needs lots of space for creating the temporary files
it uses, and flash drives may not have adequate free space, and
corruption or loss of the file is a frequent result.

2C: You'll have a tough time finding a flash drive sold today that is less
than 2GB -- more than enough space for Word docs that were stored on a
1.44
MB floppy. Corruption is only frequent if you pull the flash card from the
USB slot while data is still being read/written. With most modern flash
drives, you don't even have to go through the Windows XP "Saftely remove
hardware" procedure.

2C-A - Why are we talking about flash drives again?

"Again"?

"Again" as in "remind me" since this was not brought up in the OP at all.

Because many people read this newsgroup and, from the number of
complaints about corrupted files that were saved directly to or opened
directly from flash drives, it's a major problem that needs to be
pointed out probably several times a day.

There is no evidence that flash memory is any more volitile than HDD memory.
The fact that many people encounter corruption with flash drives is not an
indicator that there is a problem with flash drives per se. It is more
likely that the people reporting problems are not using them properly
(pulling the drive while it's still being read from/written to). In a NG,
you'll most likely hear from the folks that don't know how to do something
correctly. Rather than make a statement like "DON'T access then from the
flash memory", which has no basis for being a technicological problem,
Graham should have said something like "If you use a flash drive to transfer
the files, be careful to only pull the drive out after you've successfully
completed the save operation to the drive.". But, to somehow imply that
documents on flash drives shouldn't be opened directly is absurd.

-Scott