Preventing creation of duplicate docs?

[Retired Soldier]

I have attempted on several occasions to delete duplicate copies of documents
which are being created by some mysterious action of Word or XP. If I delete
docs and put them in the Recycle Bin and empty the bin, they reappear as if
by magic. I can't be the only on with this problem, but I can't find a
single reference to it on the web.

 

[DeanH]

Please can you give more details of these files, are they exact copies, what
files extention do they have?

Beware, by deleting/moving them you maybe interfering with the normal
operation of Word and could be heading for a corruption of your files.
If the files are ~$ file, this is an "owner" file that Word creates for each
Word
document you open. It's normal behavior for Word, and you can't
stop Word from doing it. See
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211632 "Description of how
Word creates temporary files" for more information. But you can
stop Windows from displaying the temporary files by starting
Windows Explorer or My Computer and clicking on Tools | Folder
Options | View tab | select the "Do not show hidden files and
folders" radio button | OK.
Are the document backup copies? (check Tools.Options, Save, Always create
backup copy).
Hope this helps
DeanH

 

[Retired Soldier]

DeanH:

Thanks for your reply. I apologize for not more fully explaining what seems
to be going on. I recently had to purchase a new pc to replace a failing
machine. The company which built the new one saved My Documents, photos and
other data in a file called "Old Data". After much experimentation (which
I'm sure more expert users would have figured out easily) I was able to get
all my "old" Word documents to be accessable by the copy of Word (2000) which
I'd installed after I received my new computer. When I open the documents
file under Word, everything looks ok, just like it did on my previous
computer. However, when I open the documents file under "Old Data" there are
multiple copies of these documents. My objective is to delete the copies
thus freeing up disc space. A simple way of doing this would be to delete
the entire "Old Data" file. However, I want to keep it for some time as
insurance. There are draft emails and saved emails which I've been unable to
extract. The files are there but they seem to be empty. That's a different
challenge, of course. Other than burning "Old Data" to a CD and deleting the
file, do you have any suggestions? Maybe this isn't such a problem at all.
(Another issue which I'm dealing with and which I didn't mention is the
duplication and triplication, etc. of photos. But that is for another time. )

Many thanks from an old "Retired Soldier".

 

[DeanH]

I would say this appears not to be a specific Word problem, but only that the
problem is affecting Word .doc files as well as many other file types.
The best course of action would be to ask in the WindowXP forum (see link
below) where someone more suited to the environment may help.
I would expand on your description to include example file names and
extension that you are seeing, eg, Test01.doc, Test01(1).tmp, ~$st01.doc.
This information will hopefully help diagnose the problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...ed7-e23e-4264-97e8-eb7d5a162b12&lang=en&cr=us

All the best to you.
DeanH

 

[Retired Soldier]

Many thanks helping. I will follow your advice.

Retired Soldier