2003 word files viewing weird files shows ~$ what's going on

[captmarvel]

it seems that most of my word files change somehow many of them show a weird sign like this ~$ in front of the file name and when i open them all i see is a series of boxes?
what happened and can i change them back to viewable files?

 

[genomon]

~$ looks like temp files created by the application. What extension do these files have? If it is not .doc or .xdoc they are not Word files. If you cannot see the extentions, open Windows Explorer. Go to Tools|Folder Options|View, and uncheck "hide extensions of well-known file types".

Cogito eggo sum – I think, therefore I am a waffle.

 

[captmarvel]

they are .doc files they were created and saved in word..."hide extensions" was already unchecked...any guesses as to what happened to these files and how i can restore them

 

[captmarvel]

i understand these are temp files, but the regular files have disappeared....when i open these temp files all i see are a bunch of small boxes

 

[genomon]

Sorry capt this doesn't solve your problem, but does give you a place to start looking. The tilde thing is definitely what Word uses for temp filenames, although they usually have a .tmp extension.

A simplified view of the scheme used to save an edited file

Create temp file Create ~wrdxxxx.tmp
Write temp file Save example data to ~wrdxxxx.tmp
Delete original file Delete EXAMPLE.DOC
Move temp to target name Move ~wrdxxxx.tmp to Example.doc


Word gains significant performance speed by placing the temporary file in the same directory as the saved file. If Word placed the temporary file elsewhere, it would have to use the MS-DOS COPY command to move the temporary file from the other directory to the saved location. By leaving the temporary file in the same directory as the saved document file, Word can use the MS-DOS MOVE command to quickly designate the temporary file as the saved document.

Here is the entire MS walkthrough - maybe you can pinpoint where and why it is breaking down. Good luck, sorry not to be of more help!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211632

Cogito eggo sum – I think, therefore I am a waffle.