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--- Bob Beal <bobb -at- rmci -dot- net> wrote:
> I don't expect a fix from this post - perhaps some insightful commiseration.
> Has anyone else made the wrong keystrokes (Alt included?) in Word 2000 and
> lost a .doc file? I did and found the pre-session version still intact, no
> changes saved. Upon reluctantly reworking that version and attempting to
> save it to a zip disk, I received the "locked for editing by 'another user'"
> warning. Trying to view it "read only" resulted in an "illegal operation by
> Winword" warning. The file I lost is apparently still invisibly "in use." I
> am not on a network; however, I do have a second hard drive to which I
> mirror via batch file nightly. The "find files" feature revealed that the
> file name in question somehow in the course of the day's events made it onto
> the second drive also. My attempt at allowing sharing was futile, as was
> deleting all findable files of the same name. Everyone is excused if this
> one is just too yucky to touch.
Bob,
The problem is not all that uncommon, nor is it just related to Word 2000. If
you look at the directory in which your file resides (turn on the ability to
view invisible files, if necessary), you will see a .tmp file. Barring that,
you should see some sort of temporary file that was not purged when first your
file got messed up. You can delete this file and the messages about it being
locked for editing by another user will cease and all will be right with the
world again.
