problem with the "save AutoRecover" preference

[Jensen]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: intel

Hi, having a problem using the latest version of office 2004 and Leopard 10.5.2.

I use word on a daily basis to save dozens of documents. I was working on several when word unexpectedly quit. Surprisingly, when I reopened word, those documents did not pop back up even though I had saved them previously and had turned on saving the autorecover document every 5 minutes.

I decided to dig around in the Microsoft User Data folder and found that the last autorecover document saved there was back in december, 4 months ago. It seems that Office has not been saving AutoRecover documents at all even though the box is checked in preferences. A spotlight search (making sure to include system files in the search) reveals that none of the documents I have been working on for the past few days are being autorecovered.

What's going on here?

 

[Jensen]

I think I may have figured out the problem myself. Under Preferences->file locations there was no location selected. I clicked "autorecover files" and then clicked modify to target the Microsoft User Data folder. Now everything seems like it's saving properly

As a side-rant, I think it's unforgivable that Word can be set not to save autorecover documents anywhere without even telling the user that even though autorecover is "on," it's literally not saving the documents. This is not something I should have to upgrade to Office 2008 to fix (if Office 2008 fixes the issue at all).

 

[Clive Huggan]

Jensen,

Not much point in ranting here -- we're just people who use Word and take
the trouble to share with others. Don't tell the people who agree with you
-- tell Microsoft, via the Help menu. It *does* add to the votes on what
needs improving.

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
============

 

[John McGhie]

That's interesting. I hope you followed Clive's suggestion to report this.

If that entry is "blank" Word is supposed to save the AutoRecover files to
the system .tmp folder (which you can't see unless you are logged in as
root).

So it may help to use Disk Utility to Fix Permissions on your boot drive
(because that's where the temp folder is).

Cheers

I think I may have figured out the problem myself. Under Preferences->file
locations there was no location selected. I clicked "autorecover files" and
then clicked modify to target the Microsoft User Data folder. Now everything
seems like it's saving properly

As a side-rant, I think it's unforgivable that Word can be set not to save
autorecover documents anywhere without even telling the user that even though
autorecover is "on," it's literally not saving the documents. This is not
something I should have to upgrade to Office 2008 to fix (if Office 2008 fixes
the issue at all).

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]