Word documents are copying their own names with a tilde symbol in

[Brenda]

of the document name. Some are using the same document name, but with the
tilde and a dollar sign replacing the first two letters (For example, my
son's homework for Aug 15 now has a copy of it that says ~$mework Aug 15)

Other times, it makes a file that is called ~WRL2594.tmp. In some folders,
there are now 100 of these things! If I open them, there are just a few
boxes, not an actual copy of the document itself.

Is this a virus or a glitch???

Brenda

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

They're temp files. See “Description of how Word creates temporary filesâ€
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632

 

[Brenda]

Thanks Suzanne! Next question, then -- why are they being saved instead of
either merging or discarding the temp files like material in the link says
will happen.

It also says that this temp file is created when there's not enough memory
to do it otherwise. How should I change my settings to allow enough memory
(as I certainly have plenty in my computer)?

Thanks,
Brenda

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

What version of Word are you using? Older versions of Word were notorious
for not cleaning up their debris. I've noticed that Word 2003 is a bit
better than 2002 was, 2002 was better than 2000, and so on. Still, none are
anywhere close to perfectly tidy.

Some of it also has to do with crashes. Whenever Word crashes, it doesn't
have a chance to do its normal housekeeping. This leaves leftover .tmp
files. In the very old versions, Word would actually try to re-load tmp
files when you started it up after a crash. This was disasterous. The only
solution was to scruptuously search for and delete temp files after each
crash. As far as I can tell, the later versions of Word no longer do that.

While I imagine that in theory having unlimited memory would solve the
"problem", I don't know of anyone who's stumbled onto a configuration that
eliminates Word's perceived need to create tmp files. With 1GB of memory, I
notice that my system is faster, but I still see the same frequency of tmp
file creation that I see on my 512MB computers.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

On some networked systems, failure to delete Word .tmp files can be a
symptom of either incorrect folder permissions or a bug associated with SMB
packet signing on certain versions of Windows server. If this sounds like it
might be applicable to your situation, see "Client, Service, and Program
Incompatibilities That May Occur When You Modify Security Settings and User
Rights Assignments" at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823659