What are "recovered" files? Why does Word 2003 keep creating them?

[Clueless in Seattle]

The last couple of times I've run Word 2003, it has alerted me that it
has "recovered" some files and has asked me to select the ones I want
it to save.

What strikes me as peculiar about this is that the files that it
supposedly "recovered" already existed in readable and editable form on
my hard drive.

Not sure what to do, I decided to err on the side of caution, and asked
word to "recover" all the files on the list, and I just added a
numeral to the end of the filenames of the recovered files.

So now I've got three versions of each of the files with names
likethis:

Filename
Filename2
Fiename3

I'm wondering if someone could explain to me why Word is creating these
additional files, and perhaps offer me some advice on the appropriate
response the next time this happens.

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

 

[Graham Mayor]

If Word crashes - on re-opening Word it will attempt to recover the files
that were open at the time and if successful give you the opportunity of
retaining them. The fact that you may have versions of these files saved is
immaterial.
See http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm as presumably you
have a mess to clean up.
You can delete the supplementary unwanted versions of the files.

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Graham Mayor - Word MVP


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