Computer Basics with MS Windows
Computer Basics 1 is the introductory level to using Windows effectively and includes the basic skills needed by any computer user. Questions from the sessions can be posted here. Please note that we are only able to provide support on topics covered in our classes, and only to students who have taken these courses with us.
3 Comments:
Thank you once again for last Monday night's course. I am looking forward to doing more course work in the future, and have raved about Inet-toolbox to everyone I have talked with recently. I would like to ask a question about something I had discussed regarding a lost file. Here's the situation: I have two documents that I created and cannot open. They went from word or publisher to a squiggly line symbol, and I can not open either. In past attempts, I have tried to follow the computer's cues - it said the file cannot be located, it advised opening it under other options. I have located them in the recycle bin, and looked at some of the details. Compared to everything else on the list of 116 recycled items, these are the only two that are listed under Type category as File. The others are classified as File Folder, Text Document, Microsoft Publisher, etc. Both are listed as C drive, along with all of the others. Where I am stuck is that I am suddenly drawing a blank as to what to do next?
Laurie
Hi Laurie,
What it sounds like is that you have what are called "temporary files". Each time you are working on a document in Word or Publisher, if you look at your list of files in My Computer or Windows Explorer you'll notice a "copy" of the document you are working on with a little squiggle in the name. This is a temp file. Once you save and close the document you are working on, the temp file is supposed to go away.
However, sometimes they end up being saved - typically if we don't shut down properly or experience an unexpected outage or crash. These "temp files" are then used to recover at least part of what we were working on (Word is continuously saving to the temp file while we work so we can usually recover quite a bit if there is a crash). One of the best skills to learn is to save your documents as soon as you start them, since this will give you a chance to name it properly right away and gives your system something to fall back on if something goes awry.
What that means is that the temp files are usually "copies" of something else we were working on. They can't usually be opened except by the system itself in doing a recovery. If this was the only copy, you may be out of luck.
Try this: restore the file from the recycle bin, then open the folder it is in on your drive. Sort the files by name and see if there is another one with the same name but no squiggle. If so, that's the actual file and the squiggle one is the temp file.
Let me know how it goes!
Cynthia
Hi Laurie,
Cynthia's suggestions will likely bring you the greatest success. Typically, if your computer only shows the file name with the little squiggly line in front of it and not the full filename version of the file, its an indication that there was a problem with saving the file or that there is some form of file corruption.
If you are using the Office2003 suite, you do have another tool for helping to recover these files. Start up MS Word or MS Publisher and go to File>Open. Once the "Open" dialogue box appears, look at the "open" button in the bottom right hand corner - there will be a small down arrow beside "open" that will give you a list of other options. One of them will be "Open and Repair". Navigate to where the squiggly line files are located (after restoring them from the recycle bin as per Cynthia's instructions) and select the "Open and Repair" option. You may also have to change the "Files of type" dialogue box to open files of all types rather than just the .doc files that it wants to see.
Good luck with this one - missing/corrupt files are always a cause of frustration. Let us know how it goes!
John
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