If you've looked at the temp folder before you load a excel (and a workbook),
then after you've loaded a workbook, you'll see some temp files. (Load the
biggest .xls file you can find.)

But they're not anything close to the size of the .xls file. (Unqualified guess
follows.) I've often looked at those files as "control" files that excel uses
to indicate that the real workbook is in use.

I get names like:
~dfd8ab.tmp (with 0 bytes)
and
~dfd8c7.tmp (0 bytes)

MSWord uses a similar named file (something like: ~$doc1.doc), but it has stuff
in it. (It looks like the name of the user who has the file open and some more
info (my name and address). I'm not sure if it gets that from the product
registration or maybe when I registered windows.)

But excel's files are empty.

The thing that worries me most about saving to any removeable media (not just
floppies) is that when you save a copy of your workbook, excel will save it as a
new name in the same folder. (Typically using up twice as much space on the
disk/media--if the file stays about the same size.

Then if that save is successful, excel will either rename the original file to
"Backup of book1.xlk" or delete it.

With small floppy drives (and the average size of workbooks), this would scare
me off.

The other part about saving to removeable media is if you remove it. Take out
the floppy/thumb drive while you're writing to it and I bet that can't be good.

I _think_ that a long time ago (DOS 5 after reading the KB article in Dana's
post), that this could confuse a program good enough so that even if you put the
disk back into the drive, it couldn't find it. (But I could be wrong--I
remember that problem, but it's not mentioned in the KB article--so I could be
making it up!)

And the last portion that scares me is the number of floppies I've tossed--just
because they were unreadable by any floppy drive. By saving to the
harddrive/network drive, I have a built in backup. (And it's usually lots
quicker to save to your local harddrive.)

========
More about those control files in your temp folder...

A common suggestion when your workbook opens in readonly mode is to clean up
that temp folder (getting rid of those temp files) and reboot (killing any
hidden instance of excel).

Debra Dalgleish has this as part of the FAQ at her site:
http://www.contextures.com/xlfaqApp.html#ReadOnly



RWN wrote:

I'll pass on the advice after I determine the required MOBO melting temperatu-).

Just for my own edification however;
Any idea why Excel would trash a floppy if, unlike Word, it's using the Temp dir on the HD
as a work area? I always thought (wrongly-I guess) that it was the temp files that
garbaged the diskette(?).

--
Regards;
Rob
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Jon Peltier" wrote in message
...
Excel will corrupt the file, trash the disk, and melt your motherboard if you work
off a floppy. Don't do it.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

RWN wrote:

Thanks Dave, I found them;
(I was looking in the wrong "Temp" folder <blush).

A colleague is having problems reading a disk and mentioned that he was saving Excel
files
directly to it.
I knew (from hard experience-a long time ago) that Word will corrupt a disk in these
circumstances but wasn't sure if Excel would do the same.



--

Dave Peterson