Word Doppleganger (V2002 Pro)

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I’m not sure whether I should post this in the XP forum, Word Forum or elsewhere – but I never experienced this annoyance with Windows 98 so it’s ended up here. I’m using Word 97 and when I double-click on a word document to open it I always get the message “[File name] is being used by Chris, Do you want to make a copy? OK Cancel? If I select OK I get the file name in the word title bar with the word copy in brackets after the name. If I select cancel I just get the original file. My questions – why does this happen and how can I stop it? There are no other user accounts set up on the machine (excluding guest). As far as I know I am Chris so why does Windows tell me I’m already using the file when I’ve only just opened i? Moreover, if I open up Word first and then open a file I don’t get any messages. But if Word isn’t running then I do get the message. Is this a bug or do I need to adjust my settings?

Thanks in advance,

Chris (Hunt)

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Could be a bug, but then there are so many little flaky things that go on, it’s just one more. Word does that when it believes that another user has a document open. I’d first try uninstalling office and then re-installing so that the correct registry values and configuration is reset. A pain, sure, but unless someone else has a better idea that’s all I can think to do first.

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This can happen when you have a crash while editing a document. When you next open the same document Word believes it is still open.

Close Word. Search your My Documents folder (and sub folders) for any file that begins with ~$ Delete them.

These are known as “owner files” and are often left behind when there is a crash.

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Surprisingly I don’t think I’ve had a crash with word 97 and XP! I did as you suggested and searched for ~$ files but didn’t find any. Any other suggestions, please?

Chris

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I will have to go with Guy on this. I had this same problem with Word 97 & 2000. I am surprised you are able to work them at all in XP as there are some bugs when attempting to do so. I would do a search of —> *.doc on the local drive. That should tell you where the ~$ files are and then delete them.

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Hi Bruce. I searched for *.doc as you suggested and didn’t find any ~$ files. I’m hanging on for any more ideas as I really would like to avoid reinstalling Office as Mark suggested.

Chris

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Nope, I have no other ideas about what could be causing this other than the orphaned “owner files.”

Just to be clear, you would search for “~$*.*” (no quotation marks).

I know of no other reason that Word would think a file is open already.

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Thanks, I tried that search and “~$” and “~$*.doc” as well – not a $au$age – oh, well looks like I’m uninstalling and reinstalling. Ho hum…

Chris

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Delete
~*.*
files. Theses are the TMP files Word leaves like shards wherever the documents have been stored

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Thanks – I got 3 ‘hits’ in c:temp searching ~*.*. I deleted them rebooted and unfortunately it made no difference. Word is still behaving in the same annoying way. Just before I go and reinstall Office this couldn’t be anything to do with the way I’ve set up Windows XP could it? My account is the administrator, there are no user accounts – should I have set up at least one account in addition to the administrator account – could this be confusing Word? When I ran Windows 98 and 95 I always avoided user accounts like the plague. Now they seem unavoidable?

Chris

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Just did some playing around – those ~$*.* files seem to be hidden. Turn on “Show hidden files and folders” in your folder options, and try searching again.

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Thanks but about the first change I make with any new system is to check ‘show hidden files and folders’ and make sure ‘hide extensions for known file types’ is unchecked. Basically, I like to be able to see exactly what’s on my computer though I’m willing to make an exception in the case of .DB files (see the Thumbnails and hidden files thread).

Chris

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I think I found the solution. First I looked at User Information (under

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