"The mystery of the Bizarro Word Documents!"

No, this isn’t a story, it’s just my funny way of asking for help.

Once again, my PC baffles me. I’ve been using Word 2000 to write my stuff, but for a while now, corrupted copies of MANY of my saved story files (as well as other files that I’ve saved, such as stuff I downloaded from the NET) have been appearing in the My Documents folders. These copies can’t even be read. I delete all the ones that I find, but more keep popping up. So far, they haven’t had any bad effect (other than cluttering my Documents space) but I fear this may be a sign of something worse. Anyone knows the possible cause?

Temporary files maybe? Do you ever turn off your computer wihout shutting it down?

Xwing1056

Yes, they are probably temporary files (These ones are usually hidden, and have a “$” symbol of them)

I would suggest you to echew Office, change your OS to Linux, and use Open Office instead NodNod

;>>

<<;

< /temporallinuxmania>

Kirby: Yes, I am, but I would suggest you to stop derailing threads, mods don’t like people who do it.

Also, my post wasn’t incoherent at all. Notice I actually added some useful information on it.

“Yes, they are probably temporary files (These ones are usually hidden, and have a “$” symbol of them)”

So… yeah :stuck_out_tongue:

Kirby = Uriel

Sizer beat me to it.

Everytime you save a document with an office program, it will generate a temporary hidden copy of that document in the same folder where the document is stored. These copies can be opened, but mostly they’ll appear screwed up. They are useful for one thing: if the computer is shut down (power cut or similar things) or crashes while you’re typing, you may restore your work from the latest temporary copy. Office does this restoration automatically, but it’s not 100% efficient.

Hmm. I assume that can be it (they do have the $ symbol) but I hadn’t noticed them before. In fact, there’s a lot of junk showing up on the My Documents folder- like pics from the My Pictures folder. I don’t think they should be there, right? Anyway, is there some way to hide all this stuff so that when I want to see the stuff I saved, I don’t see the copies?

You can do it by actually hiding your hidden files. (I think you can do it somewhere in the control panel)

I wouldn’t suggest you to do it, though, since it also would hide a lot of useful hidden files. (Like the Install Shiels failed downloads folder.)

Edit: They also dissapear when you shut down your PC :wink:

They are supposed to be automatically deleted as soon as you close Word too. Try reinstalling Office, might solve the problem. As for the pics, I don’t know. Might be just another XP bug. Never happened to me.