B
bonehead
Apologies in advance for the long post (before it's done you will have
realized the origin of my nomen), but if someone could please point me
to some genuinely *good* documentation about the settings in:
Tools | Options | Save...
I'd be very grateful.
I have encountered questions about these settings frequently, and I am
unable to find detailed answers in Help or in my MS Press book or in the
MKSB.
I am trying to understand the specifics of the following settings:
Backup Copy
Fast Save
Background Save
and
Save Auto Recover Info
Help is not particularly descriptive about all of these settings.
AFAICT, it appears that:
1. Backup Copy: When "Always create Backup copy" is turned on, when the
user selects "File | New..." and then "File | Save As...", Word saves
the file as a .doc, and also creates a file called "Backup of....wbk",
which it saves in the same directory as the associated .doc file. When
the user edits the .doc file and then hits the Save button, Word also
overwrites the associated .wbk file.
There does not appear to be any way to change the default directory of
the .wbk files. Since both files are thus saved on the same drive and in
the same directory, it is not clear to me what the advantage of .wbk
files is...if the drive crashes, both files are lost, and I must still
recover both files from the same tape. Except that I only run tape
backups on our shared file server, so if a user creates and saves a .doc
on their local HD and that HD crashes, both files are *lost* lost.
Moreover, it is not clear to me what happens if the user shuts down the
computer without explicitly Saving an open, edited file and exiting Word
before shutting down the machine. What state are the .doc and .wbk files
in if this happens?
BTW this appears to be the reason that this practice was originally
established in our environment...evidently some users simply could not
be relied upon to save and close documents and then exit Word before
shutting down the computer.
In addition, what exactly happens if the user inadvertently opens and
edits the .wbk file?
2. Fast Save: My MS Press "Running Word 97" book states that, "Now that
Word has a Background Save feature, Fast Saves are no longer really
necessary. Background saving means that Word writes your changes to the
disk file as you continue to work. Using Background Save is the fastest
way to return to work." I interpret this to mean that Word does not
prevent the user from continuing to type on the screen while Word is
saving disk. But since most machines today are fast enough to commit
saves more or less instantaneously, it is not clear to me what the
advantage of either feature is, which leads me to:
3. Background Save: W97 Help states: "Keep in mind that background save
uses additional system memory; if you need to conserve system resources,
you may want to turn off background save." To reiterate from #2 above,
it seems to me that, unless I'm saving directly to a floppy, there does
not appear to be any practical reason for having this feature turned on
either.
4. Save AutoRecover info: I had to find out the hard way that, if a user
creates and saves "ThisIsMyFullFileName.doc" and the machine has a power
failure while the user is editing that document, Word creates a file
with a DOS-truncated name, i.e., "THISI~.doc", and places *that* file in
whatever directory I specified in the File Locations tab for AutoRecover
files. Moreover, if the user starts the computer and restarts Word, Word
recovers the data from truncated-name AutoRecover this file, but
presents the file to the user as "ThisIsMyFullFileName.doc".
Moreover, Help states that you must verify that this recovery file
contains the information you want and then explicitly use this
AutoRecover version to replace the original document: you must go File |
Save As... and then click Yes where it says "Do you want to replace the
existing document?"
If, instead of doing this, the user just keeps editing away and shuts
down the computer each day without explicitly saving and then quitting
Word, Word will just continue to save the changes in the "THISI~.doc"
file. Furthermore, the "THISI~.doc" file does not show up on the File
History, so each day when the user starts Word again, the user thinks
they are editing the original file!
In addition, it's not clear to me what would happen if the user edits
the recovery file, and just hits "Save". Apparently the changes are all
saved to the "THISI~.doc" file.
We once had a user who simply could not remember to hit "File | Save..."
at all, ever. The user simply shut down the computer each day. When the
power failed, we had a devil of a time locating a critical file that the
user had been working on for the last couple of weeks.
Ultimately, it appears that there is simply no substitute for the user
remembering hit that Save button. However, if someone would be willing
to shed some additional light on these issues, I'd really appreciate it.
realized the origin of my nomen), but if someone could please point me
to some genuinely *good* documentation about the settings in:
Tools | Options | Save...
I'd be very grateful.
I have encountered questions about these settings frequently, and I am
unable to find detailed answers in Help or in my MS Press book or in the
MKSB.
I am trying to understand the specifics of the following settings:
Backup Copy
Fast Save
Background Save
and
Save Auto Recover Info
Help is not particularly descriptive about all of these settings.
AFAICT, it appears that:
1. Backup Copy: When "Always create Backup copy" is turned on, when the
user selects "File | New..." and then "File | Save As...", Word saves
the file as a .doc, and also creates a file called "Backup of....wbk",
which it saves in the same directory as the associated .doc file. When
the user edits the .doc file and then hits the Save button, Word also
overwrites the associated .wbk file.
There does not appear to be any way to change the default directory of
the .wbk files. Since both files are thus saved on the same drive and in
the same directory, it is not clear to me what the advantage of .wbk
files is...if the drive crashes, both files are lost, and I must still
recover both files from the same tape. Except that I only run tape
backups on our shared file server, so if a user creates and saves a .doc
on their local HD and that HD crashes, both files are *lost* lost.
Moreover, it is not clear to me what happens if the user shuts down the
computer without explicitly Saving an open, edited file and exiting Word
before shutting down the machine. What state are the .doc and .wbk files
in if this happens?
BTW this appears to be the reason that this practice was originally
established in our environment...evidently some users simply could not
be relied upon to save and close documents and then exit Word before
shutting down the computer.
In addition, what exactly happens if the user inadvertently opens and
edits the .wbk file?
2. Fast Save: My MS Press "Running Word 97" book states that, "Now that
Word has a Background Save feature, Fast Saves are no longer really
necessary. Background saving means that Word writes your changes to the
disk file as you continue to work. Using Background Save is the fastest
way to return to work." I interpret this to mean that Word does not
prevent the user from continuing to type on the screen while Word is
saving disk. But since most machines today are fast enough to commit
saves more or less instantaneously, it is not clear to me what the
advantage of either feature is, which leads me to:
3. Background Save: W97 Help states: "Keep in mind that background save
uses additional system memory; if you need to conserve system resources,
you may want to turn off background save." To reiterate from #2 above,
it seems to me that, unless I'm saving directly to a floppy, there does
not appear to be any practical reason for having this feature turned on
either.
4. Save AutoRecover info: I had to find out the hard way that, if a user
creates and saves "ThisIsMyFullFileName.doc" and the machine has a power
failure while the user is editing that document, Word creates a file
with a DOS-truncated name, i.e., "THISI~.doc", and places *that* file in
whatever directory I specified in the File Locations tab for AutoRecover
files. Moreover, if the user starts the computer and restarts Word, Word
recovers the data from truncated-name AutoRecover this file, but
presents the file to the user as "ThisIsMyFullFileName.doc".
Moreover, Help states that you must verify that this recovery file
contains the information you want and then explicitly use this
AutoRecover version to replace the original document: you must go File |
Save As... and then click Yes where it says "Do you want to replace the
existing document?"
If, instead of doing this, the user just keeps editing away and shuts
down the computer each day without explicitly saving and then quitting
Word, Word will just continue to save the changes in the "THISI~.doc"
file. Furthermore, the "THISI~.doc" file does not show up on the File
History, so each day when the user starts Word again, the user thinks
they are editing the original file!
In addition, it's not clear to me what would happen if the user edits
the recovery file, and just hits "Save". Apparently the changes are all
saved to the "THISI~.doc" file.
We once had a user who simply could not remember to hit "File | Save..."
at all, ever. The user simply shut down the computer each day. When the
power failed, we had a devil of a time locating a critical file that the
user had been working on for the last couple of weeks.
Ultimately, it appears that there is simply no substitute for the user
remembering hit that Save button. However, if someone would be willing
to shed some additional light on these issues, I'd really appreciate it.