Phantom files

[Michael]

Good afternoon all. Recently, phantom files have been showing up on my 2003
system. For example, if I open a word document called "memo.doc", the next
time I open the folder there is second, ghost file called "~$memo.doc" of 162
bytes. Does anyone know why this happens? Thanks very much in advance

 

[garfield-n-odie]

That's an "owner" file that Word automatically creates, to prevent more
than one person from editing the same document at the same time. It's
normal, and Word for Windows has always done this. Word should
automatically delete the owner file when you close the memo.doc file.
See http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632 "Description of how Word
creates temporary files" for more information.

 

[Michael]

Thanks very much garfiel-n-odie. I've been deleting the darn things. It's
great to know that word will do it automatically.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you have the document still open, you will not be able to delete the
owner file, so if you have been deleting them, it would appear that Word is
*not* deleting them as it should. This can cause a buildup of temp files
that can impair performance. The cause, I am told, has something to do with
SMB packet signing (whatever that is) in some versions of Windows Server.