.WBK

[Yolande Choquette]

I use Word 97.

Since my computer at work has been changed, I have the same Word 97 and now
I have some files saved with the extension .wbk and it has a name like
«security copy» with that extension.

What does the extention .wbk means and is there a way I can avoid having
these files?



Yolande Choquette

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi, Yolande,

Before you go deleting wbk files wholesale, it's a good idea to understand
what they are and why you might want to keep them around, at least for a
while...

The option for "Always create backup copy" is checked in Tools > Options >
Save. Because of that option, any time you open an existing document and
save a change to it, Word renames the previous file (as it existed before
you made the change) to "Backup of <original name>.wbk". At each successive
save, the existing file is again renamed to that same name. That is, you
always have a copy of "one version back". This isn't a true backup, but it's
better than nothing if you accidentally delete the document file.

You may want to clean out old wbk files after a day, or a week. But if you
turn off the option so that Word doesn't create them at all, that's when
you'll inevitably need it.