Word Documents Okb & Plain Text

[Ray_]

Hi all, one of my customers has recently reported that Word files a
particular user saved last Friday are empty, so i began investigating and am
completely stumped.

Hoping somebody here can help.

Details:
- All Word documents saved by 1 user on the 8th August are empty, 0kb, Word
says they are Plain Text although they have a .DOC extension.
- The user reports no errors or unusual behaviour while saving
- Files are saved to numerous folders on a 2003 Server
- Files are completely empty, opening them in Notepad confirms this
- This is not the first time this has happened, although nobody reported it.
There are numerous documents spread out across the last 4-5 years where they
are empty/0kb. This spans several users also
- The Date and time created/modified/accessed displayed in the file
properties is exactly the same time (i.e. date/time created and date/time
modified - or accessed - for each individual file is the same, not for all
files).
- The customer has had 2 antivirus solutions over the course of the last 4-5
years: Mcafee and eTrust.
- This only affects word documents (Word 2003 fwiw)
- The documents are based on different templates.
- The user is a Terminal Server user, ther are other users on the same
server who have had no problems at all, saving files on the same dates as
those who have been affected.

I have checked another of my customers networks and found the same thing
going on! This time back to 2001, random files/folders/users.

I also tested emptying a word document in notepad and saving with the
exsitng .DOC extension - this causes Word (2003) to treat the document as
plain text. Its as if the documents are being emptied by something - I'm not
ruling out user error but its highly unlikely as the user who was affected on
the 8th has had no problems since. Plus this has affected numerous users
files, over the last several years.

I hope that makes sense! Many thanks in advance for any advice anyone can
offer

Regards
Ray.

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Googling, I do see at least one other person who reports something that
looks similar:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=240726&start=0

The question is there... but no anwer.

My first guess would be a Word-based virus, perhaps one that McAfee and
eTrust didn't know about, and that manages to hide itself. But, the problem
seems to be something more systematic than that.

If not that, then I would think that it might be a permissions issue, and
that occasionally, users are losing permissions needed to work in the temp
file location. Or... perhaps it's a hardware issue (bad cable, perhaps), and
the connection to the server is being broken (or is permanently broken).

On the problem work station where this is happening all the time...

Check the user's Tools - Options - File Locations - AutoRecover files
location, and see if any .asd files have been left behind. Also, check the
temp folder (I presume it's on the server), and make sure all permissions
are correct. Ditto the file location's permissions, as well.

It could also be an issue of a corrupted Normal.dot file and/or registry
entries that are preventing [only] Word from correctly copying the temp file
data to the Word document file when the file is saved or closed. I'm rusty
on how setup with a terminal server works with respect to individual work
stations. Does each user have their own defined workspace on the server with
their own Normal.dot, and corresponding registry entries? If so, try
creating a new workspace for the user and see if the problem goes away.

 

[Ray_]

Thanks a lot for your reply Herb, i will check out those suggestions as soon
as i can!

Regards
Ray.

Googling, I do see at least one other person who reports something that
looks similar:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=240726&start=0

The question is there... but no anwer.

My first guess would be a Word-based virus, perhaps one that McAfee and
eTrust didn't know about, and that manages to hide itself. But, the problem
seems to be something more systematic than that.

If not that, then I would think that it might be a permissions issue, and
that occasionally, users are losing permissions needed to work in the temp
file location. Or... perhaps it's a hardware issue (bad cable, perhaps), and
the connection to the server is being broken (or is permanently broken).

On the problem work station where this is happening all the time...

Check the user's Tools - Options - File Locations - AutoRecover files
location, and see if any .asd files have been left behind. Also, check the
temp folder (I presume it's on the server), and make sure all permissions
are correct. Ditto the file location's permissions, as well.

It could also be an issue of a corrupted Normal.dot file and/or registry
entries that are preventing [only] Word from correctly copying the temp file
data to the Word document file when the file is saved or closed. I'm rusty
on how setup with a terminal server works with respect to individual work
stations. Does each user have their own defined workspace on the server with
their own Normal.dot, and corresponding registry entries? If so, try
creating a new workspace for the user and see if the problem goes away.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

Hi all, one of my customers has recently reported that Word files a
particular user saved last Friday are empty, so i began investigating and
am
completely stumped.

Hoping somebody here can help.

Details:
- All Word documents saved by 1 user on the 8th August are empty, 0kb,
Word
says they are Plain Text although they have a .DOC extension.
- The user reports no errors or unusual behaviour while saving
- Files are saved to numerous folders on a 2003 Server
- Files are completely empty, opening them in Notepad confirms this
- This is not the first time this has happened, although nobody reported
it.
There are numerous documents spread out across the last 4-5 years where
they
are empty/0kb. This spans several users also
- The Date and time created/modified/accessed displayed in the file
properties is exactly the same time (i.e. date/time created and date/time
modified - or accessed - for each individual file is the same, not for all
files).
- The customer has had 2 antivirus solutions over the course of the last
4-5
years: Mcafee and eTrust.
- This only affects word documents (Word 2003 fwiw)
- The documents are based on different templates.
- The user is a Terminal Server user, ther are other users on the same
server who have had no problems at all, saving files on the same dates as
those who have been affected.

I have checked another of my customers networks and found the same thing
going on! This time back to 2001, random files/folders/users.

I also tested emptying a word document in notepad and saving with the
exsitng .DOC extension - this causes Word (2003) to treat the document as
plain text. Its as if the documents are being emptied by something - I'm
not
ruling out user error but its highly unlikely as the user who was affected
on
the 8th has had no problems since. Plus this has affected numerous users
files, over the last several years.

I hope that makes sense! Many thanks in advance for any advice anyone can
offer

Regards
Ray.

 

[Ray_]

Right, I have checked out permissions and all is well.
I checked the Autorecover Path and there are 0Kb .asd files in there for
every failed file for this user, going back to july this year (the last
recorded 0Kb file for this user).

The path is the default (for a terminal server) : %userprofile%\application
data\microsoft\word - would there be any mileage in moving it to a different
location?

Thanks again
Ray

Thanks a lot for your reply Herb, i will check out those suggestions as soon
as i can!

Regards
Ray.

Googling, I do see at least one other person who reports something that
looks similar:

http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=101&threadID=240726&start=0

The question is there... but no anwer.

My first guess would be a Word-based virus, perhaps one that McAfee and
eTrust didn't know about, and that manages to hide itself. But, the problem
seems to be something more systematic than that.

If not that, then I would think that it might be a permissions issue, and
that occasionally, users are losing permissions needed to work in the temp
file location. Or... perhaps it's a hardware issue (bad cable, perhaps), and
the connection to the server is being broken (or is permanently broken).

On the problem work station where this is happening all the time...

Check the user's Tools - Options - File Locations - AutoRecover files
location, and see if any .asd files have been left behind. Also, check the
temp folder (I presume it's on the server), and make sure all permissions
are correct. Ditto the file location's permissions, as well.

It could also be an issue of a corrupted Normal.dot file and/or registry
entries that are preventing [only] Word from correctly copying the temp file
data to the Word document file when the file is saved or closed. I'm rusty
on how setup with a terminal server works with respect to individual work
stations. Does each user have their own defined workspace on the server with
their own Normal.dot, and corresponding registry entries? If so, try
creating a new workspace for the user and see if the problem goes away.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

Hi all, one of my customers has recently reported that Word files a
particular user saved last Friday are empty, so i began investigating and
am
completely stumped.

Hoping somebody here can help.

Details:
- All Word documents saved by 1 user on the 8th August are empty, 0kb,
Word
says they are Plain Text although they have a .DOC extension.
- The user reports no errors or unusual behaviour while saving
- Files are saved to numerous folders on a 2003 Server
- Files are completely empty, opening them in Notepad confirms this
- This is not the first time this has happened, although nobody reported
it.
There are numerous documents spread out across the last 4-5 years where
they
are empty/0kb. This spans several users also
- The Date and time created/modified/accessed displayed in the file
properties is exactly the same time (i.e. date/time created and date/time
modified - or accessed - for each individual file is the same, not for all
files).
- The customer has had 2 antivirus solutions over the course of the last
4-5
years: Mcafee and eTrust.
- This only affects word documents (Word 2003 fwiw)
- The documents are based on different templates.
- The user is a Terminal Server user, ther are other users on the same
server who have had no problems at all, saving files on the same dates as
those who have been affected.

I have checked another of my customers networks and found the same thing
going on! This time back to 2001, random files/folders/users.

I also tested emptying a word document in notepad and saving with the
exsitng .DOC extension - this causes Word (2003) to treat the document as
plain text. Its as if the documents are being emptied by something - I'm
not
ruling out user error but its highly unlikely as the user who was affected
on
the 8th has had no problems since. Plus this has affected numerous users
files, over the last several years.

I hope that makes sense! Many thanks in advance for any advice anyone can
offer

Regards
Ray.