[Larry]

Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[JoAnn Paules[_2_]]

No because to print it, it was to be opened.

--

JoAnn Paules
Microsoft MVP - Publisher

How to ask a question
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375



"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:37:34 -0400 from Larry :
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

First, you absolutely *can* print a document from a flash drive.
Either open it and print it, or right-click on it in Explorer and
select Print.

Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive. There's the obvious
caveat: you have to keep track of where the removable medium is, but
other than that...

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

You can probably get away with it as long as printing is all that you do.
That is no editing or saving.

--
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

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

But it still has to be opened, and this creates temp files. Probably not a
major issue, but still a consideration. Some versions of Word, if fully
patched, probably won't permit it, anyway. I haven't updated Office 2003 in
over a year; I know I should, but for now I'm not experiencing any problems,
and I keep seeing reports of weird effects of the updates, so I've dragged
my feet. I do know that inability to open a file from a removable drive
seems to be one effect of recent updates.

--
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 - Word MVP" wrote in message
...
You can probably get away with it as long as printing is all that you do.
That is no editing or saving.

--
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

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Daiya Mitchell]

Stan Brown wrote:
Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive.


Actually, Stan, this is incorrect when it comes to Word. Every time a
document is opened and edited, Word creates a lot of temporary files in
the same location as the original file. On a small floppy disk that runs
out of space quickly, this is just about guaranteed to cause corruption
sooner or later, as the files cannot be created or closed properly. A
bigger flash/USB drive is less risky, but corruption still seems to be
reported more frequently when editing from a USB drive than on the hard
drive.

[Terry Farrell]

Rubbish. Please don't encourage using REM media with Word.

Terry

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
...
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:37:34 -0400 from Larry :
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

First, you absolutely *can* print a document from a flash drive.
Either open it and print it, or right-click on it in Explorer and
select Print.

Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive. There's the obvious
caveat: you have to keep track of where the removable medium is, but
other than that...

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Aalaan]

The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working from
there?

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:33:33 -0700 from Daiya Mitchell
:
Stan Brown wrote:
Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive.


Actually, Stan, this is incorrect when it comes to Word. Every time a
document is opened and edited, Word creates a lot of temporary files in
the same location as the original file.

"A lot of temporary files"? I've never seen more than one (when
editing a Word doc that's on my desktop). Are you sure there are "a
lot"?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

OK, you only see just one file (read "container"), but who knows what it
contians and it can take a lot of space.

--
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

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:33:33 -0700 from Daiya Mitchell
:
Stan Brown wrote:
Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive.


Actually, Stan, this is incorrect when it comes to Word. Every time a
document is opened and edited, Word creates a lot of temporary files in
the same location as the original file.

"A lot of temporary files"? I've never seen more than one (when
editing a Word doc that's on my desktop). Are you sure there are "a
lot"?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.

--
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.

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:33:33 -0700 from Daiya Mitchell
:
Stan Brown wrote:
Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive.


Actually, Stan, this is incorrect when it comes to Word. Every time a
document is opened and edited, Word creates a lot of temporary files in
the same location as the original file.

"A lot of temporary files"? I've never seen more than one (when
editing a Word doc that's on my desktop). Are you sure there are "a
lot"?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:10:40 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.

Suzanne, a request:

If you're going to put your quoted material after your signature,
please don't use the "-- " signature delimiter. That prevents
standard-conforming newsreaders, like Gravity, from quoting the
previous material, and users must laboriously copy/paste to preserve
context. Thanks!

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Stan Brown]

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:10:40 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:33:33 -0700 from Daiya Mitchell
:
Stan Brown wrote:
Second, I don't know what's up with that "not safe". Editing a
document on a floppy or a removable USB drive is no more or less safe
than editing it on your computer's hard drive.

Actually, Stan, this is incorrect when it comes to Word. Every time a
document is opened and edited, Word creates a lot of temporary files in
the same location as the original file.

"A lot of temporary files"? I've never seen more than one (when
editing a Word doc that's on my desktop). Are you sure there are "a
lot"?

There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.

I understand now. I guess the creation of the extra files depends on
particular work patterns. Either I've not worked in that particular
way, or more likely when I have I wasn't paying attention to
temporary files.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Daiya Mitchell]

Stan Brown wrote:
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:10:40 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.


I understand now. I guess the creation of the extra files depends on
particular work patterns. Either I've not worked in that particular
way, or more likely when I have I wasn't paying attention to
temporary files.

Mostly I only see this in action if Word crashes on me, when it leaves
behind several "Word Work D_XXXX" files, as they are labeled on the Mac.
But it's kinda neat sometimes if I have the relevant folder open in the
background--when I hit Save I can see Word closing 6-7 temp files in the
folder.

I'm avoiding grading, so here's a KB article on it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/89247/en-us

I *think* it supports my belief that the temp files are used to maintain
the Undo list.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I think you're right about the Undo list. I rarely see the .tmp files
because I have Word's Open and Save dialogs set to display only All Word
Documents, but when a long document becomes sluggish, I figure it may have
to do with the number of files open, so I close and reopen it.

--
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.

"Daiya Mitchell" wrote in message
...
Stan Brown wrote:
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:10:40 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are
frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after
the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these
are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a
complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is
quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.


I understand now. I guess the creation of the extra files depends on
particular work patterns. Either I've not worked in that particular
way, or more likely when I have I wasn't paying attention to
temporary files.

Mostly I only see this in action if Word crashes on me, when it leaves
behind several "Word Work D_XXXX" files, as they are labeled on the Mac.
But it's kinda neat sometimes if I have the relevant folder open in the
background--when I hit Save I can see Word closing 6-7 temp files in the
folder.

I'm avoiding grading, so here's a KB article on it:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/89247/en-us

I *think* it supports my belief that the temp files are used to maintain
the Undo list.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I would imagine this would be a setting in your newsreader. If I *didn't*
use the signature delimiter, others would complain. And *many* (including
me) would complain if I bottom-posted.

--
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.

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:10:40 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
There is one file for sure (the ~$ owner file), but there are frequently
also numerous ~$wrlxxx.tmp files, one for each save (or each save after
the
first if you are creating *.wbk backup files). I'm never sure why these
are
created--it may have to do with copying and pasting--but each is a
complete
copy of a previous saved version of the document, so if your file is
quite
large, each of these will be about the same size. They are (normally)
deleted when you close the document.

Suzanne, a request:

If you're going to put your quoted material after your signature,
please don't use the "-- " signature delimiter. That prevents
standard-conforming newsreaders, like Gravity, from quoting the
previous material, and users must laboriously copy/paste to preserve
context. Thanks!

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Larry]

Well, I was asking for a friend who moves back and forth between computers
and likes to do that. I personally never work on a removable medium, having
absorbed that lesson from the Word newsgroups over the years. Also, I did
wonder if the USB flash drive since it is so large would be different from a
floppy in this regard.



"Aalaan" wrote in message
...
The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as
it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not
just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working
from
there?

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In this case, it appears that perhaps the speed of transfer might be an
issue rather than the size of the drive. Not to mention the speed with which
the user removes the drive (i.e., like a floppy, if it's removed before Word
gets through with it, you'll end up with garbage).

--
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.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I was asking for a friend who moves back and forth between computers
and likes to do that. I personally never work on a removable medium,
having
absorbed that lesson from the Word newsgroups over the years. Also, I did
wonder if the USB flash drive since it is so large would be different from
a
floppy in this regard.



"Aalaan" wrote in message
...
The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as
it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not
just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working
from
there?

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document
to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question
will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Daiya Mitchell]

No, it's a pretty universal rule in email clients, part of whatever
specs govern the web. The dash-dash-space is designed to cut off
everything after it, which, if everyone were bottom posting, would
nicely prevent any sigs from building up. It doesn't work well with
top-posting.

Of course, 90% of the time you are the last word on a question, and it
doesn't matter.

Suzanne S. Barnhill wrote:
I would imagine this would be a setting in your newsreader. If I *didn't*
use the signature delimiter, others would complain. And *many* (including
me) would complain if I bottom-posted.

[LurfysMa]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:50:03 +1000, "Aalaan"
wrote:

The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working from
there?

This is yet another bug that we have had for so many releases. I guess
M$FT is too poor to fix bugs.

The temp files should all be in a temp directory, not cluttering up my
personal folders and certainly not written to floppies.

And there is no excuse for a M$FT application using the M$FT file
system to ever crash or have corruption.

This is just ****ty code. It would not get a passing grade in an
undergraduate programming course. Total BS.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

[Aalaan]

Well, IMO your friend would be well advised to adopt the habit of copying
from his removable media to the hard drive he's working on, as a matter of
course. A bit more tedious yes but a heck of lot less tedious than a
corrupted file.

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Well, I was asking for a friend who moves back and forth between computers
and likes to do that. I personally never work on a removable medium,
having
absorbed that lesson from the Word newsgroups over the years. Also, I did
wonder if the USB flash drive since it is so large would be different from
a
floppy in this regard.



"Aalaan" wrote in message
...
The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as
it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not
just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working
from
there?

"Larry" wrote in message
...
Based on what is said in the groups, that it is not safe to work on a
document on a removable medium, but that we should copy the document to
the
hard disk and work on it there, I suppose the answer to my question
will
be
no. But I just wanted to be sure.

[Terry Farrell]

Well if the temp locking file was placed in your temp folder, how would
someone else with access to the same folder on the server be aware that the
document was already open and stop them from opening and editing the
document at the same time as you. Chaos would reign.

Terry

"LurfysMa" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:50:03 +1000, "Aalaan"
wrote:

The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as
it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not
just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working
from
there?

This is yet another bug that we have had for so many releases. I guess
M$FT is too poor to fix bugs.

The temp files should all be in a temp directory, not cluttering up my
personal folders and certainly not written to floppies.

And there is no excuse for a M$FT application using the M$FT file
system to ever crash or have corruption.

This is just ****ty code. It would not get a passing grade in an
undergraduate programming course. Total BS.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

[Stan Brown]

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:45:25 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
I would imagine this would be a setting in your newsreader. If I *didn't*
use the signature delimiter, others would complain. And *many* (including
me) would complain if I bottom-posted.

You mean a setting in my newsreader to do it wrong? Not available.
And if it were it wouldn't be appropriate -- like saying "I'm in the
US but I want to drive on the left, so everyone else must go around
me."

No one should complain if you stop using the delimiter wrongly, or if
they do then they are complaining out of ignorance.

The RFCs exist for a reason -- if people follow them then everything
works better. The problem is that you're doing two nonstandard
things, and the combination creates a conflict.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Tony Jollans]

Outlook Express (or Windows Mail) by default puts quoted text below the
(delimited) signature - as per this message. Are you saying that's wrong?
And, if so, could you point me to the RFC (I can't see anything about it in
RFC 1036)?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Stan Brown" schreef in bericht
t...
Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:45:25 -0500 from Suzanne S. Barnhill
:
I would imagine this would be a setting in your newsreader. If I *didn't*
use the signature delimiter, others would complain. And *many* (including
me) would complain if I bottom-posted.

You mean a setting in my newsreader to do it wrong? Not available.
And if it were it wouldn't be appropriate -- like saying "I'm in the
US but I want to drive on the left, so everyone else must go around
me."

No one should complain if you stop using the delimiter wrongly, or if
they do then they are complaining out of ignorance.

The RFCs exist for a reason -- if people follow them then everything
works better. The problem is that you're doing two nonstandard
things, and the combination creates a conflict.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[Tony Jollans]

There are (at least) two different issues here.

Operating system (e.g. Windows) locks must be placed somewhere where the
operating system can find them and relate them to the locked resource.

Where appropriate (e.g. concurrent updating in multi-user environments),
application-level (e.g. Word) locks must be placed somewhere where other
instances of the application can relate them to the original resource. I
don't think any current versions of Word require such locks.

Application temporary files should normally be placed in local temporary
space. Instead of using the %temp% directory provided by Microsoft's own
operating system specifically for this purpose, Word chooses to use the
document's source folder. This does confuse users and does cause problems
when working on networked devices and/or removable media.

The only time there is any real reason to use a file's source folder for
temporary work space is when saving a file - to make sure the file is
properly saved before removing the original - overwriting in place is
inherently risky.

I am inclined to agree that Word's behaviour would be considered bad
programming practice, and I can't think of a single thing in its favour.

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Terry Farrell" schreef in bericht
...
Well if the temp locking file was placed in your temp folder, how would
someone else with access to the same folder on the server be aware that
the document was already open and stop them from opening and editing the
document at the same time as you. Chaos would reign.

Terry

"LurfysMa" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:50:03 +1000, "Aalaan"
wrote:

The answer is certainly no. Word makes use of various temporary files as
it
works (excuse pun). Saving to portable media is invariably too slow and
files get easily corrupted. You *may* be OK loading *from* but why not
just
get into the habit of copying to the main hard drive and always working
from
there?

This is yet another bug that we have had for so many releases. I guess
M$FT is too poor to fix bugs.

The temp files should all be in a temp directory, not cluttering up my
personal folders and certainly not written to floppies.

And there is no excuse for a M$FT application using the M$FT file
system to ever crash or have corruption.

This is just ****ty code. It would not get a passing grade in an
undergraduate programming course. Total BS.

--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000

[Stan Brown]

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:53:04 +0100 from "Tony Jollans" My forename at
my surname dot com:
Outlook Express (or Windows Mail) by default puts quoted text below the
(delimited) signature - as per this message. Are you saying that's wrong?

Yes, I'm afraid it is.

The signature delimiter says "in a reply, don't quote anything that
follows". I don't think you're going to find an RFC that says "'don't
quote anything that follows' means not to quote anything that
follows". :-)

I'd prefer not to fatigue folks who come here for discussions of Word
by getting into a long thing on Usenet formatting. I had thought
Suzanne was simply unaware of the convention, and offered a polite
reminder, but I don't want it to turn into an of argument so I won't
post again on this topic here. (Anyone who wants to pursue it in
email is welcome to.)

For those who might be interested in the reasons behind the
convention, here are a couple of good references:

news.newusers.questions FAQ:
"Quoting Style in Newsgroup Postings"
http://www.xs4all.nl/%7ewijnands/nnq/nquote.html

"The Advantages of Usenet's Quoting Conventions"
http://www.mccaughan.org.uk/g/remarks/uquote.html

"How do I Quote Correctly in Usenet?"
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote2.html

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/

[LurfysMa]

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 10:24:11 +0100, "Tony Jollans" My forename at my
surname dot com wrote:

There are (at least) two different issues here.

Operating system (e.g. Windows) locks must be placed somewhere where the
operating system can find them and relate them to the locked resource.

Where appropriate (e.g. concurrent updating in multi-user environments),
application-level (e.g. Word) locks must be placed somewhere where other
instances of the application can relate them to the original resource. I
don't think any current versions of Word require such locks.

Application temporary files should normally be placed in local temporary
space. Instead of using the %temp% directory provided by Microsoft's own
operating system specifically for this purpose, Word chooses to use the
document's source folder. This does confuse users and does cause problems
when working on networked devices and/or removable media.

The only time there is any real reason to use a file's source folder for
temporary work space is when saving a file - to make sure the file is
properly saved before removing the original - overwriting in place is
inherently risky.

Quite right. This would be one possible exception, but even then, if
there isn't enough space on the removable media, I would move the
original file to the hard disk, write the new version on the removable
media, then delete the old version -- all with appropriate flags to
facilitate recovery in case of power failure or premature ejection.

Again, any good undergraduate programming course would teach this.

I am inclined to agree that Word's behaviour would be considered bad
programming practice, and I can't think of a single thing in its favour.


--
Running Word 2000 SP-3 on Windows 2000