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.

When excel saves the file, it saves it as a temporary file with a funny name (8
characters--no extension) in the same folder.

If the save is successful, xl will delete the original (or rename it to its
backup name (like "backup of book1.xlk)) and if that's successful, xl will
rename the funny named file to the original's name.

If you're seeing that funny named file, then something is going wrong.

Common things that get blamed for interruptions to this process are antivirus
software poking its head in or network errors--either permissions or physical
problems.

=========
I don't work enough with shared files to know how this interacts with what
you're seeing.

E.Q. wrote:

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.

--

Dave Peterson