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AutoRecovery Question
Word 2000
Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#2
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The .WBK file is not the file created by the Autorecover utility. It is the
file that is created if the "Always create backup copy" box is checked under ToolsOptionsSave. The autorecover file will have a name the same as the file name except that the first two characters of the filename will be replaced by ~$. If Word really did crash (and it was not the operator) then Word does usually (and in my experience, quite reliably) recomver such files. If the ~$ file still exists, it can (sometimes) be opened to provide some usable text by using the "Recover text from any file" option in the Files of type pulldown in the FileOpen dialog. -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#3
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I think you are confusing the "owner" file (~$lename.doc) with the
AutoRecovery backup file (AutoRecovery Backup of filename.asd). -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Doug Robbins" wrote in message ... The .WBK file is not the file created by the Autorecover utility. It is the file that is created if the "Always create backup copy" box is checked under ToolsOptionsSave. The autorecover file will have a name the same as the file name except that the first two characters of the filename will be replaced by ~$. If Word really did crash (and it was not the operator) then Word does usually (and in my experience, quite reliably) recomver such files. If the ~$ file still exists, it can (sometimes) be opened to provide some usable text by using the "Recover text from any file" option in the Files of type pulldown in the FileOpen dialog. -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#4
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I do NOT have the "Always create backup copy" box checked. The only options
that are checked on the Save tab of the Options dialog box are the "Allow background saves" and "Save AutoRecover info every" boxes. Here is what I did as a test. 1) Set the AutoRecover interval to one minute 2) Closed Word and then opened it again 3) Typed a line in Document1 and then waited two minutes (to make sure the AutoRecover information had a chance to be saved) 4) After two minutes, and without first saving the file, I literally pulled the plug on the machine When I powered the machine back up I found a file called "AutoRecovery save of Document1.wbk". When I opened Word the file was recovered as I would expect. The same user that lost the document says that he lost another one today. However, today he said that he might be hitting a key down on the bottom row of the keyboard. I thought that maybe he hit a shortcut key that closed the document, but he maintains that he did NOT get a prompt to save the document (which a user would see if they were closing the document without saving), and I could not find any key combinations that close the document without prompting the user to save it first. Suzanne posted a link to an article on the various Save options in Word, and it looks the AutoRecover feature does not work in the way that the user things it should. I may try the SaveReminder add-in from Graham Mayor in an effort to train the user to save his work periodically. --Tom "Doug Robbins" wrote in message ... The .WBK file is not the file created by the Autorecover utility. It is the file that is created if the "Always create backup copy" box is checked under ToolsOptionsSave. The autorecover file will have a name the same as the file name except that the first two characters of the filename will be replaced by ~$. If Word really did crash (and it was not the operator) then Word does usually (and in my experience, quite reliably) recomver such files. If the ~$ file still exists, it can (sometimes) be opened to provide some usable text by using the "Recover text from any file" option in the Files of type pulldown in the FileOpen dialog. -- Hope this helps. Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my services on a paid consulting basis. Doug Robbins - Word MVP "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#5
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To add to what Doug has said, see
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#6
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Suzanne,
Thanks for the link. That explains a lot, and I will use that link to help explain to the user how the AutoRecover feature works. I may also try the SaveReminder from Graham. --Tom "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... To add to what Doug has said, see http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
#7
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Going as far back as Word 2.0, which actually had a feature misleadingly
named AutoSave, this feature has behaved in (more or less) the same way. In no case did it save a copy of the document if the file was manually, intentionally closed without saving. It was always intended only to save files in case of Word hangs, system crashes, or power outages, and that's what it still does. It does it *much* better than it used to, to be sure; if Word hangs, it graciously saves a copy of the current document *while* it is closing down and presents that, along with any previously saved AutoRecovery backups, when you restart Word (in fact, I think it restarts Word for you). It also tells you which of the three files (your own last save, the last regularly scheduled AutoRecovery backup, and the backup saved during the crash) is the most recent. I think this is pretty spectacular. But it does nothing to help the user who closes a file intentionally without saving, and that is the message I keep trying to get across to users. -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Suzanne, Thanks for the link. That explains a lot, and I will use that link to help explain to the user how the AutoRecover feature works. I may also try the SaveReminder from Graham. --Tom "Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message ... To add to what Doug has said, see http://word.mvps.org/faqs/general/AutomaticSave.htm -- Suzanne S. Barnhill Microsoft MVP (Word) Words into Type Fairhope, Alabama USA Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit. "Thomas M" wrote in message ... Word 2000 Before I state my question, let me say that I did not personally witness what the user did, or what happened in the aftermath. I got my report second hand, so it's hard to say what truly transpired. That being said, here is what I was told... A few weeks ago one of the users that I support lost several hours of work because Word crashed unexpectedly and he had not saved his document, and then Word failed to recover his file when it restarted. The user has Word set to save autorecovery information every 10 minutes. When Word did not recover the file automatically after being restarted, the user attempted to find the .WBK file, but was not able to locate the file. With regards to the .WBK file, I suspect that the user was looking in the wrong location because the file location for autorecover files is different than the document and startup file locations, and the user is not sophisticated enough with Word to know how to find the correct file location. However, in theory the file location should not matter, and Word should have been able to recover the file. But alas, I know that theory does not often match the real world. This might be something of a broad question, but what are the possible causes of Word's failure to recover the file, and how might I go about making the autorecovery operation more reliable? --Tom |
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