I have a question that may be more about a system problem than an Excel
problem. I've had files "disappear" on me. I thought it was due to a user
accidentally deleting a file. But now I think there may be another issue. I
worked with our IT people and set the security so that the files could only
be deleted under my login. But I lost another file tonight.
It turns out that the file wasn't actually lost but had been renamed. The
name I found on My Computer was an eight-digit hexadecimal string. I found it
by searching all files saved on a network drive for the day and simply
sorting by the time it was modified. (I knew the file had been accessed
successfully by one of my employees 15-minutes previously.) When I clicked on
the hexedecimal string (no file extention) it opened as the "missing" file. I
simply renamed the file and saved anew. I also made a copy of the file, just
in case it happened again.
My questions: what's going on? The file is a shared file (quite helpful
when we have three people on graveyard shift covering 28 buildings stretched
over a mile). I'm wondering if perhaps the hex-string-named file is an
intermediate file that Excel creates to store a copy to test for contested
cell entries.
Or perhaps the file is used to help excel in case it needs to recover a
corrupt file. Right now I'm just guessing.
But if it is related to the shared file, would I be less likely to lose
files by removing the shared feature? (And live with the moaning about having
to trudge to a computer a half-mile away to be able to make entries?) Or is
this something that our IT department should be able to fix?
I've e-mailed our resident guru. Is there anything I can tell him that might
help resolve this?
Thanks.
E.Q.