I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft

rallymonkey1982 · 04-25-2002, 08:27 AM

Time for a sob story...

I was finishing up a 5 page paper earlier today, just had to add the bibliography and print it out before turning it in. I read through it, took the time to correct it, then inserted a page break, did the bibliography, and saved it. Then I looked up at the rest of the essay and found that it was gone. 5-6 hours of work for the whole essay erased by Microsoft. I don't know how a page break managed to do that, but it did. And, of course, a regular page break looks the same as a new page on it's own, so I thought I was fine.

Fortunately, I had most of the damn thing backed up on a disk, but had to redo the last page and re-edit the whole thing, and then I was running short on time before it was due. I packed about 3hours of typing, correcting, etc into an hour, and got it turned in on time, but I will now be very happy with a B instead of the A that I might have gotten

%^&* Microsoft

SoxWin · 04-25-2002, 09:09 AM

<a href="http://www.****microsoft.com" target="_blank">You're going to love this link </a>

Cheers

Rich

moss2k · 04-25-2002, 09:12 AM

can't love it when it doesn't work

Fritz · 04-25-2002, 09:15 AM

I understand the frustration, but it is still better than using a typewriter.

Kahkhing · 04-25-2002, 09:16 AM

Well you have to replace the **** with your favorite swear word.

Kahkhing · 04-25-2002, 09:17 AM

Well you have to replace the **** with your favorite swear word.

Kahkhing · 04-25-2002, 09:18 AM

IE 6.0 hiccup, wasn't my fault.

joshuaaaaaa · 04-25-2002, 09:41 AM

I still don't understand why this is Microsoft's fault. Usually things like this are "operator error." For instance, "Oh, maybe I had all of the text highlighted when I hit the page break, so it erased it." Frankly, Word (I assume this was in Word) has multiple levels of undo built into it, and if you had checked to see if all the data was there before you saved it, you wouldn't have had a problem.

Of course, that's just my opinion...I could be wrong.

John C · 04-25-2002, 09:46 AM

I notice the multiple undo levels have been brought up.

Did you try those? It's not like Excel, where you get one level. You can undo almost everything in Word, I believe. I know it goes for more than five or six levels, so undoing a page break, I would think, wouldn't be a problem.

If I'm wrong, please correct me.

And I DO suppose that it's a moot point now, so I guess no reply is needed, period.

Peace
John

rallymonkey1982 · 04-25-2002, 10:16 AM

The undo levels did not help me because I saved the paper (biliography) before quitting. I tried to recreate the error later, with no luck at all... I have absolutely no idea how the entire thing was deleted.

joshuaaaaaa · 04-25-2002, 10:37 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by John C:
I notice the multiple undo levels have been brought up.

Did you try those? It's not like Excel, where you get one level. You can undo almost everything in Word, I believe. I know it goes for more than five or six levels, so undoing a page break, I would think, wouldn't be a problem.

If I'm wrong, please correct me.

And I DO suppose that it's a moot point now, so I guess no reply is needed, period.

Peace
John<hr /></blockquote>I'm pretty sure Word supports 100 levels of undo. I've never had to use more than about 20.

Malleus Dei · 04-25-2002, 11:24 AM

I have used Word since 1.0 came out. To do what you did, you had to manually delete everything (CTRL-A, delete) and then have saved the empty file. To not have had a backup file made automatically, you must have that option unchecked on Tools/Options/Saves - go and fix that right now (turn Always Create Backup Copy on, as you must have it turned off).

In other words, you could do what you did, but it amounts to loading a gun and pulling the trigger, after having taken the safety off.

Blaming Microsoft or Word for that is like blaming Ford because you drove into a tree.

joshuaaaaaa · 04-25-2002, 11:31 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Malleus Dei:
I have used Word since 1.0 came out. To do what you did, you had to manually delete everything (CTRL-A, delete) and then have saved the empty file. To not have had a backup file made automatically, you must have that option unchecked on Tools/Options/Saves - go and fix that right now (turn Always Create Backup Copy on, as you must have it turned off).

In other words, you could do what you did, but it amounts to loading a gun and pulling the trigger, after having taken the safety off.

Blaming Microsoft or Word for that is like blaming Ford because you drove into a tree.<hr /></blockquote>Mal, this is one time your signature line (which, of course, doesn't show up in the quote) is dead-on.

Remember, nothing is foolproof from a sufficiently talented fool.

LivnLegend · 04-25-2002, 11:50 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft<hr /></blockquote>Careful, that's the kind of talk that led Robert Blake down the path of trouble!

joshuaaaaaa · 04-25-2002, 12:04 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by LivnLegend:
 <blockquote>quote:<hr />I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft<hr /></blockquote>Careful, that's the kind of talk that led Robert Blake down the path of trouble!<hr /></blockquote>Geez, I hadn't thought about it that way...Just substitute "That worthless bi[/i]tch who lied to me to get my money and whored herself out to convicts" for "Microsoft" and its identical!

Not that this justifies murder.

rallymonkey1982 · 04-25-2002, 06:21 PM

Mallus, if I had deleted everything, or had the autosave feature off, I would agree with you, but I did not delete the essay, and I do have the auto save feature on, that's why I'm pissed.

BasicGuy · 04-25-2002, 06:29 PM

I use to give work In tech support for some MS products and one thing I relized when It comes to problems at least 75% of the problems were user error....

But Never & I do mean NEVER say Its not possible for the program to do that.....You dont want to know how many corrupted databases I seen over the years(yes It was more than likely the OS and not the program...But who makes that OS <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> )

One piece of advice I allways gave was save everything to two locations.....Your HD and a Floppy\Zip and check to make sure there good copys. Is It a lot of extra work? yes but If Its important enough you wont mind.

Malleus Dei · 04-26-2002, 04:18 AM

"Mallus, if I had deleted everything, or had the autosave feature off, I would agree with you, but I did not delete the essay, and I do have the auto save feature on, that's why I'm pissed."

Woot, well now THAT'S a Level 2 problem. (I've only seen full loss like this once before with Word - a grad student who had a lightning strike hit the neighborhood power pole and thereby lost her master's thesis.)

Okay, this is what you do. Identify your windows temp directory (usually /windows/temp, but it may be different, and it is defined and listed) and look for all of the following files in that directory in the following generalized formats:

All temporary autoRecovery files: ~wraxxxx.tmp

All document copy files: ~wrcxxxx.tmp

All Word document copy files: ~wrdxxxx.tmp

All Temp files: ~wrfxxxx.tmp

All Clipboard files: ~wrlxxxx.tmp

All Word OLE document files: ~wroxxxx.tmp

All Scratch files: ~wrsxxxx.tmp

If you have the right OS and version of Word and if go through all of these files with a file viewer, you MIGHT be able to find enough of your data to do at least a partial recovery. No promises, but if this is done promptly and you are really lucky you can get close to 100% recovery (for example, I recovered 95%+ of the grad student's thesis this way)

Good luck!

davep1967 · 04-26-2002, 04:35 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by BasicGuy:
I use to give work In tech support for some MS products and one thing I relized when It comes to problems at least 75% of the problems were user error....
<hr /></blockquote>I think 75% is a bit generous. Probably more like 95%.

Remember the golden rule:--- "Save early and often"

BasicGuy · 04-26-2002, 04:50 AM

dave I was giveing all those Tech advisors & Network admins a little credit that called me

04-25-2002, 08:27 AM	#1
rallymonkey1982 Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Orange County Posts: 436	I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft Time for a sob story... I was finishing up a 5 page paper earlier today, just had to add the bibliography and print it out before turning it in. I read through it, took the time to correct it, then inserted a page break, did the bibliography, and saved it. Then I looked up at the rest of the essay and found that it was gone. 5-6 hours of work for the whole essay erased by Microsoft. I don't know how a page break managed to do that, but it did. And, of course, a regular page break looks the same as a new page on it's own, so I thought I was fine. Fortunately, I had most of the damn thing backed up on a disk, but had to redo the last page and re-edit the whole thing, and then I was running short on time before it was due. I packed about 3hours of typing, correcting, etc into an hour, and got it turned in on time, but I will now be very happy with a B instead of the A that I might have gotten %^&* Microsoft __________________ "This is sort of like living the American dream. You get to come the ballpark and get a free beer." - Arte Moreno My Life

04-25-2002, 09:09 AM	#2
SoxWin Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Blissful ignorance Posts: 3,315	<a href="http://www.**microsoft.com" target="_blank">You're going to love this link </a> Cheers Rich __________________ It's called partying. When you do a lot of it, you're bound to be places where the police show up. I smoke a lot of pot and drink a lot of beer. I also graduated Suma Cum Laude. **ing sue me. - Luis Rivera

04-25-2002, 09:41 AM	#8
joshuaaaaaa All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 633	I still don't understand why this is Microsoft's fault. Usually things like this are "operator error." For instance, "Oh, maybe I had all of the text highlighted when I hit the page break, so it erased it." Frankly, Word (I assume this was in Word) has multiple levels of undo built into it, and if you had checked to see if all the data was there before you saved it, you wouldn't have had a problem. Of course, that's just my opinion...I could be wrong. __________________ Baltimore Monarchs-GUBA Baltimore Orioles-ORB2 "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." ~Henry Ford ~

04-25-2002, 09:46 AM	#9
John C Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Albion, RI Posts: 2,286 Infractions: 1/0 (0)	I notice the multiple undo levels have been brought up. Did you try those? It's not like Excel, where you get one level. You can undo almost everything in Word, I believe. I know it goes for more than five or six levels, so undoing a page break, I would think, wouldn't be a problem. If I'm wrong, please correct me. And I DO suppose that it's a moot point now, so I guess no reply is needed, period. Peace John __________________ Facebook \| My Videos

04-25-2002, 10:16 AM	#10
rallymonkey1982 Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Orange County Posts: 436	The undo levels did not help me because I saved the paper (biliography) before quitting. I tried to recreate the error later, with no luck at all... I have absolutely no idea how the entire thing was deleted. __________________ "This is sort of like living the American dream. You get to come the ballpark and get a free beer." - Arte Moreno My Life

04-25-2002, 09:12 AM	#3
moss2k Minors (Single A) Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: charlotte Posts: 60	can't love it when it doesn't work

04-25-2002, 09:15 AM	#4
Fritz Minors (Single A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 81	I understand the frustration, but it is still better than using a typewriter.

04-25-2002, 09:16 AM	#5
Kahkhing Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 32	Well you have to replace the **** with your favorite swear word.

04-25-2002, 09:17 AM	#6
Kahkhing Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 32	Well you have to replace the **** with your favorite swear word.

04-25-2002, 09:18 AM	#7
Kahkhing Minors (Rookie Ball) Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 32	IE 6.0 hiccup, wasn't my fault.

04-25-2002, 10:37 AM	#11
joshuaaaaaa All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 633	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by John C: <strong>I notice the multiple undo levels have been brought up. Did you try those? It's not like Excel, where you get one level. You can undo almost everything in Word, I believe. I know it goes for more than five or six levels, so undoing a page break, I would think, wouldn't be a problem. If I'm wrong, please correct me. And I DO suppose that it's a moot point now, so I guess no reply is needed, period. Peace John</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I'm pretty sure Word supports 100 levels of undo. I've never had to use more than about 20. __________________ Baltimore Monarchs-GUBA Baltimore Orioles-ORB2 "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." ~Henry Ford ~

04-25-2002, 11:31 AM	#13
joshuaaaaaa All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 633	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Malleus Dei: <strong>I have used Word since 1.0 came out. To do what you did, you had to manually delete everything (CTRL-A, delete) and then have saved the empty file. To not have had a backup file made automatically, you must have that option unchecked on Tools/Options/Saves - go and fix that right now (turn Always Create Backup Copy on, as you must have it turned off). In other words, you could do what you did, but it amounts to loading a gun and pulling the trigger, after having taken the safety off. Blaming Microsoft or Word for that is like blaming Ford because you drove into a tree.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Mal, this is one time your signature line (which, of course, doesn't show up in the quote) is dead-on. Remember, nothing is foolproof from a sufficiently talented fool. __________________ Baltimore Monarchs-GUBA Baltimore Orioles-ORB2 "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." ~Henry Ford ~

04-25-2002, 11:50 AM	#14
LivnLegend Hall Of Famer Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: 100% pure adrenaline! Posts: 5,624	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Careful, that's the kind of talk that led Robert Blake down the path of trouble! __________________ Excess ain't rebellion. You're drinking what they're selling.

04-25-2002, 12:04 PM	#15
joshuaaaaaa All Star Reserve Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Las Vegas, NV Posts: 633	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by LivnLegend: <strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have a strong desire to kill Microsoft</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Careful, that's the kind of talk that led Robert Blake down the path of trouble!</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Geez, I hadn't thought about it that way...Just substitute "That worthless bi[/i]tch who lied to me to get my money and whored herself out to convicts" for "Microsoft" and its identical! Not that this justifies murder. __________________ Baltimore Monarchs-GUBA Baltimore Orioles-ORB2 "One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." ~Henry Ford ~

04-25-2002, 06:21 PM	#16
rallymonkey1982 Major Leagues Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Orange County Posts: 436	Mallus, if I had deleted everything, or had the autosave feature off, I would agree with you, but I did not delete the essay, and I do have the auto save feature on, that's why I'm pissed. __________________ "This is sort of like living the American dream. You get to come the ballpark and get a free beer." - Arte Moreno My Life

04-25-2002, 06:29 PM	#17
BasicGuy Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: ND Posts: 478	I use to give work In tech support for some MS products and one thing I relized when It comes to problems at least 75% of the problems were user error.... But Never & I do mean NEVER say Its not possible for the program to do that.....You dont want to know how many corrupted databases I seen over the years(yes It was more than likely the OS and not the program...But who makes that OS <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ) One piece of advice I allways gave was save everything to two locations.....Your HD and a Floppy\Zip and check to make sure there good copys. Is It a lot of extra work? yes but If Its important enough you wont mind.

04-26-2002, 04:35 AM	#19
davep1967 Minors (Double A) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Cleveland, OH Posts: 176	</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by BasicGuy: <strong>I use to give work In tech support for some MS products and one thing I relized when It comes to problems at least 75% of the problems were user error.... </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think 75% is a bit generous. Probably more like 95%. Remember the golden rule:--- "Save early and often" __________________ Try the StickWare Schedule Generator!

04-26-2002, 04:50 AM	#20
BasicGuy Major Leagues Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: ND Posts: 478	dave I was giveing all those Tech advisors & Network admins a little credit that called me