Re: Prevent Word view-only from munching mod date?

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: henryn (henryn_at_zzzspacebbs.com)
Date: 09/16/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 20:35:47 -0700

Matt:

Thank for your response on this thread:

in article 1gk61gm.1ydr348s6z5mcN%matt@tidbits.com, matt neuburg at
matt@tidbits.com wrote on 9/15/04 5:47 PM:

> henryn <henryn@zzzspacebbs.com> wrote:
>
>> How do I prevent Word form changing a file modification date for a file that
>> I view and don't in any way modify?
>
> I've never seen such a thing.

Lucky you!

> If the red dot at the upper left of the window does not get a black dot in the
> middle of it, the document is not dirty, and it has not been modified, and
> when you close it, the modified date will not be changed.

Agreed.

Would you agree that if anything changed about the document, even page set
up -- but file position with respect to scrolling, you _will see a "Do you
want to save changes to this document before closing?" dialog?

I would think so. I have my arguments with page setup constituting a
document change, but I'll let those go.

Well, I have about 7 documents in my archive folder that I know I didn't
change, yet these show mod dates in the recent month, during the period I've
been referring to the archive, being very careful to make no changes. Even
better... I would have seen the "Do you want to save changes to this
document before closing?" dialog and been able to recover.

Fortunately I periodically mirror this HDD to another, so I have a pretty
solid backup of this folder, and I've restored it.

I made a test copy in another folder of one of the files that had showed up
as being modified today.

Unfortunately, after playing around with this file for about 30 minutes, I
can't get it to exhibit the problem.

OK, I'll be doing some research in the archives during the next week. If I
notice that the mod date of a file changes again, how do I prove I didn't
actually change something AND missed seeing the "Do you want to save changes
to this document before closing?" dialog AND hit a CR to accept the changes?

I think all I can do is assert that this happens It just isn't easy to
prove or instrument. Even before and after screen shots would be pretty
unconvincing.

Ultimately, I guess I should lock these files, but I don't know of a bulk
lock technique -- there are 159 files in this folder. I suppose someone's
got an AppleScript somewhere....or I could mess with Unix permissions -- not
sure how get-info "locked" corresponds to unix-speak, though.

Sometimes it is hard to remember what the original task was.

>
>> Should it be possible for any change to be made to the file system without a
>> dialog? In this case, when I hit the close button, if Word is going to
>> change something --anything at all-- I think it should warn me "Do you want
>> to save changes to this document before closing?" and give me a chance to
>> say "Don't Save."
>
> You are quite right. If the document is being modified without your
> being notified, something is very wrong. This sounds like the behavior
> of a macro virus - it would modify your document as it is opened and
> then immediately save it, so that you would not know of the change. m.

Thanks for the suggestion.

No macros shown in this file, and Preferences-->Security-->Warn before
opening a file that contains macros _is_ enabled.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Henry

henryn@zzzspacebbs.com remove 'zzz'

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Best way to archive? Many large attachments
    ... > I have a very large mailbox - currently 12 GIG with many subfolders ... > archives for specific folders automatically based on date - possibly ... > that was in that subfolder that is 6 months or older and a separate ... the proper folder, by selecting them & right-click/move to folder. ...
    (microsoft.public.exchange.admin)
  • Re: archive empty!
    ... I didn't have the 'permanently delete old items' radio button selected, ... Why, when I used to choose the Archives Folders in the folder list, ... Options>Advanced E-mail Options>Messages expire after XX days. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook.general)
  • Re: [SLE] sa-learn on server (Postfix/Procmail/Cyrus)
    ... A max on the number of msgs in any specific folder ... Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: File creation date. No change?
    ... confusing if a file creation date changes when I copy the file. ... I have a vbscript script that archives a file by moving it to an archive ... folder, before ftp downloading another version of the file. ... from the download folder to the archive folder and renamed. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.scripting)
  • Re: File copy bug in Mobile Device Manager 6.1 - Can anybody confirm?
    ... If you press F5 after closing the application does the file information correctly update? ... When opening a folder on the device and later copying files from it to the desktop, the file will not be checked for changes. ... Config file should be 104 bytes but still is displayed as 88 bytes long ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.compactframework)