Re: PowerPoint generating thousands of TMP files

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elvis_at_nospam.net
Date: 05/02/04 

Date: Sun, 2 May 2004 01:08:56 GMT

On 1-May-2004, "Bill Dilworth" <vestprog2@yahoo.org> wrote:

> PowerPoint does make temp files, but that many is just plain
> silly. I hope someone else has experience with this, because
> I'm curious as well.

Yeah, I thought it was plain silly too, but I thought it was
interesting what the naming scheme was. Seems to me it was
something like "~pptxxxx.tmp", with "xxxx" being a 4-digit
hexadecimal code, sequentially numbered from 0000 through FFFF,
hence the limit of 65,535. Once PPT reached this limit, it
refused to save the document (until the files were deleted). Like
I said in my original post, all of this happened in less than a
second. Your thought about a macro in an infinite loop was a good
thought, but the fact that this occurred with two separate users
(of which I was one), working on two different types of
presentations doesn't mean that *wasn't* the cause, but it does
tend to make one wonder.

I heard privately from Shyam Pillai because I had written him
privately about another issue. Here's what he said:

"That is a known issue with PPT. PPT can mis-behave when loads of
tmp files are created. There has been no known resolution apart
from deleting the files."

So, evidently there's no remedy except for realizing the problem
exists, and to look for and delete the tmp files when PPT refuses
to save. It may very well be documented on the MS site, but I did
a KB search and nothing turned up. (I might just have missed it.)

One last note -- these files are created in the folder in which
the working document was originally saved. They're not saved in
the user's Temp folder (in C:\documents and
settings\<username>\local settings\temp).

Bob

Relevant Pages

  • Re: PowerPoint generating thousands of TMP files
    ... I've been using PowerPoint rather heavily for several years and have not had ... Once PPT reached this limit, ... and to look for and delete the tmp files when PPT refuses ... > the working document was originally saved. ...
    (microsoft.public.powerpoint)
  • Re: Power Point 2003 - cant burn to CD
    ... I packaged to a folder and then used my cd burning program to put all those ... (This disc still works on the desktop, even after all my failures on ... emptying temp folder, it will not open. ... Will PPT start and open other presentations ok? ...
    (microsoft.public.powerpoint)
  • Re: powerpoint loss
    ... Open PPT, go to File|Open, change the "type" to "all ... files," navigate to your temp folder, and see if you can open that file. ... Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com ... changes on the last slide and clicked yes when I was asked if I wanted to ...
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  • Re: Retrieving lost information?
    ... Try Maureen's suggestion. ... Also look in your Temp folder. ... in there from around the time you were working on the slide, ... Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com ...
    (microsoft.public.powerpoint)
  • Re: HELP!!! Accidently saved as
    ... Look in your \TEMP folder for .TMP files of about the right size. ... you may be able to recover your work. ... Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP ...
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