add temporary documents to recent documents list

[matt]

When I open an email attachment with Word or Excel 2007, the document is
saved in a temporary files folder. Sometimes I make changes and save them,
but I forget to save the file in a new location. It's a pain to track it down
in the tmp folder, so it would be nice to re-open such a document from the
recent documents list. However, it seems docs in this directory are never
added to the recent docs list! Is there any way to remedy this?

 

[Beth Melton]

Nope. Part of the reason is how temporary internet files are handled and the
other is because they weren't designed to work this way. Can you imagine if
files stored in the Temporary Internet folder were tracked in your MRU list
the number of people that would try to store their files there permanently
and then not understand that they disappeared because they dumped their
temporary internet files?

Now, there were changes made to Office 2007 and files opened from an
attachment *should*open as read only in order to force you to save the file
to your local/network drive. BUT this doesn't always work and I've tried to
track down precisely why but haven't been successful yet.

Anyway, other than "Nope" only thing I can add is if you find you do it
again, open another file from an attachment, click the Office Button, point
at Prepare and then click Properties. You'll see the path for the location
of the Temporary Internet files folder in the Properties pane. Copy/paste
the path (omit the file name) in the Address bar of the Windows Explorer.
This should get you close to the location of your accidentally saved file.
You may have to go digging for it but at least finding it may be a little
less painful and success rate may be greater.

~Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP