Re: File corruptions in W 97. Professional Writer.Should I buy word 2
- From: "Graham Mayor" <gmayor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:28:53 +0200
There is no question that successive versions of Word have become more
reliable, but I see no reason to upgrade when Word 97 will do what you
require - and to address your immediate problems you should see
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm then
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm. However the
problem of losing unsaved work would go away if you forced yourself into the
habit of saving every time you stop for thought. CTRL+S every few minutes
will ensue that you don't lose more than a few minutes work, even if Word
does crash.
Virus? I doubt it. People cry 'Virus' when they don't know what the problem
is. Blame a virus and you don't have to take any responsibility for fixing
the problem. There are viruses out there but the sensible precautions you
are taking should minimize that possibility.
Documents do become corrupt. You may find
http://www.gmayor.com/save_numbered_versions.htm a way around that.
Personally I never did like anything about 12 Ghosts software and it could
be that which is causing the problem - even if it did produce a solution.
You could provide much the same sort of automatic file saving (though
frankly I would find it annoying) with another add-in
http://www.gmayor.com/automatically_backup.htm . You can't beat the two
fingered salute - CTRL:+S
--
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Graham Mayor - Word MVP
My web site www.gmayor.com
Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org
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Don wrote:
Preamble:
I'm a profession writer of fiction and when I lose work I find it very
difficult to recreate it. You lose the initial creative sparks and
can't repeat things as well as the first time through. Sentences
are important and sometimes you can't even remember them. It's
therefore very important to me to have reliable word processing
software (and backups), just as it is for all other professional
writers.
I'm not great with computers, but I can make registry changes and do
the normal things. I'd say I have moderate knowledge.
I use Word '97 with Windows Vista and Live OneCare on a newer HP
computer. I also have W 2000 and W 2002. I tried them both, but I
prefer W '97.
Okay then ...
Episode 1. A few weeks ago the word file I was working on froze
with a morning's work on it. I tried everything to recover it, but
nothing worked. I got help here (thanks again) and was able to open
it in a mutilated .txt doc form and recover the new work (that was a
lot of work in itself, but better than trying to recreate it.)
(Unfortunately, on that particular day, I'd forgotten to turn on/use
my four backup systems.)
Episode 2. Part one. Background. This may or may not be
related.... A
few days ago I found that a few of my desktop icons wouldn't open.
They would open in minimize and stay there. This problem went away
by itself. Part
2. Today the word file I was working on yesterday opened, but in a
frozen state ("not responding"). I rebooted and it opened (on my
second monitor--I use two of them), but it was again frozen (not
responding). I have three USB backups and I tried opening the
document file in all of them, but the results were the same. Frozen.
I did a system restore, but the same thing occured. Frozen file
(containing the most recent version of the whole manuscript). I
reinstalled my Word '97. The installation completed; however, during
the installation, I got the message "Setup has encountered a problem
updating your system registry." (I did three reinstalls with same
error message. ) (Note: On one or two occasions during this whole
event, the word file opened in the minimized state on the taskbar and
wouldn't come up on the desktop.) The three word reinstalls didn't
help. File was still frozen and lost to me.
Later on, the file stopped opening at all, and I got the error message
"Winword has encountered a problem and must close--which it did.
Other word files opened without a problem.
(This corrupt file situation seems to be exactly the same as the one I
experienced before--described in Episode One, above. [I could not even
comtemplate reviving the whole manuscript--200 pages-- using the .txt
method).
I then belatedly remembered that I also use the 12 Ghosts backup
system (saves one copy a minute) and, after some fooling around, I
was able to recover the file (a file that was saved few minutes
earlier than the frozen one). Thus I managed to save my work. Thank
heaven.
Now, with all this background (sorry about that) my questions are:
1. Should I abandon the Word '97 program I love, or might there be
some way to find and fix this intermittent file corruption problem?
I'm willing to give it a try, if someone knowledgeable thinks the
problem can be tracked down and has a suggestion I might try.
2. If I can no longer use Word '97 reliably, should I replace it
with W 2000 or W 2002
or should I buy word 2007? I only use Word to write ordinary text
with. I don't need a lot of bells and whistles.
-- Your advice and/or suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Thanks in advance, Don
P.S. My computer rep. said it was a virus, but I scan everything
that comes in and I'm very conservative in my Net travels. In any
case, I scanned my computer with OneCare Live and then installed AVG
free and scanned with that too, but with no results.
.
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