Word 2003 messes folder Modified Date

[mubs]

I've been running W2k since it was released. I've gone from MS Office 97 to 2000 to 2003. Sometime after installing Office 2003, I noticed some strange behaviour.

I have a lot of Word files, each inside its own folder. When I open a Word document, and then close it without making any changes, the "modified" date of the folder the file resides in gets changed to the current date (the file date stays the same). This is extremely frustrating for me, because I often sort these folders on last modified date, and this "bug" throws me off. This didn't happen before, and does not happen now with Excel 2003.

What gives, and how do I fix it? Many thanks.

 

[Fushigi]

Whenever you open a doc it creates a temp file in the same dir as the .doc file. That temp file creation and subsequent deletion when you close the doc is what's triggering your folder's change date update. A glance through Tools - Options doesn't reveal a way to change that. However, on the File - Open dialog, if I select a doc and click the drop-arrow on the Open button I get the option to open as read-only. It looks like that doesn't create the temp doc, but I don't know if it'd still wind up updating the folder timestamp for some other reason.

 

[Will Rickards]

Definitely a bug in my mind.
Have you checked the MS knowledgebase?

 

[mubs]

Aah, Fushigi, I think you hit the nail on the head. IIRC, previous versions created the temp file in C:\Docs&Settings...., but this one creates it in the same folder that the original is in. Opening the file read-only does not modify the folder date, so that's good. I guess I'll have to use this more painful method; up until now I have sorted by folder modified date, gone into the folder and double-clicked the file in Windows Explorer.

Will, when I first encountered this issue some full moons ago, I tried looking for the problem at MS's website and didn't find anything. I'm up-to-date on all Office patches. MS's KB is sometimes horrible to search - too many irrelevant items returned.

Thanks Fushigi and Will.

 

[Tannin]

Why not just upgrade to an older version of Word? What can you do with Office 2003 that you can't do with Office 2000? Or Word 6 for that matter?

 

[mubs]

I considered that, Tannin. Coping with this issue and reinstalling Office 2000 is like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Other than this one problem, Office 2003 had a lot of subtle improvements I like.

 

[Tannin]

OK. I can't say I've ever used it. I suppose I have assumed that the "improvements" are of the same nature as the "improvements" to the Windows XP interface over the W2K one - i.e., zero extra functionality, a whole heap of slug-trail-all-over-the-screen eyecandy crap, and breaking one of the few things that worked really well in the old version - i,e. the search function.

But then, I've barely ever used Word 2000 or Word 97 either, not since about 6 or 8 years ago. I spend half my life wordprocessing, but these days (aside from invoices, which I do in MS Word for DOS because the file format is so efficient and can be read by any program) I only ever really use one WP program: a syntax-highlighting programmer's text editor. Everything I write, I write in HTML, even letters and other paper-only stuff. With an appropriate print stylesheet (boilerplate copied from some existing document), it looks great on paper, and if I want to put it on a screen, it is already displaying nicely. Life is easier that way.

(Tannin ... what was the question?)

Oh sorry. I forgot what forum I was in.

(You've been working too hard, old chap. You better go to bed.)

'Night all.

 

[mubs]

At the top of this thread, I said I run W2k. If I was into eye-candy, I'd be running WXP.

My Word/Excel appearance (including the toolbars) have looked the same since Office 97.

I was a staunch WordPerfect user, but that product went completely downhill after Novell bought it. Office has got steadily better with each release - incrementally no doubt, but good enough for me.

 

[Fushigi]

Not so sure about Word, but Outlook 2003 has some nice improvements in an Exchange environment. For instance, I now connect via RPC over HTTPS for Outlook/Exchange. That means I get full functionality of Outlook - email, calendar, etc. - delivered over HTTPS so it doesn't matter where I'm located - at my desk in the office, at home with or w/o VPN, an Internet cafe, or at a client site. Pretty much no clients will open the 'normal' requisite Outlook/Exchange ports to the Internet and some refuse to do VPNs but all allow HTTPS.

We have over 2000 POP-based email users because of those kinds of restrictions. Over the next few months we'll migrate them to the RPC over HTTPS to give them full functionality. (Yes, OWA/Webmail offer almost full functionality but it's really not the same user experience)

Outlook also has Cached mode; I think it came along in Office 2000. Cached mode replicates your entire Exchange PST (email/calendar/etc. file) tot he PC so you work from the local copy and changes are synced to the Exchange server. Really improves performance.

BTW, I noticed the Word thing as I mostly keep the current batch of Word docs I'm working on on my desktop so the temp files wind up being created there.

 

[mubs]

Word gains significant performance speed by placing the temporary file in the same directory as the saved file. If Word placed the temporary file elsewhere, it would have to use the MS-DOS COPY command to move the temporary file from the other directory to the saved location. By leaving the temporary file in the same directory as the saved document file, Word can use the MS-DOS MOVE command to quickly designate the temporary file as the saved document.

The location where Word creates the temporary files is hardcoded information and cannot be edited. (emphasis mine)

Well done, MS.

 

[Tannin]

Word? Speed? Bahhh ..... They are dreaming.

Interesting stuff about Outlook, Fushgi. Not that it will ever be relevant to my clients, but interesting to know just the same. As for Word Perfect after Novel got hold of it .... The very first Novel version was OK, but after that .... 'nuff said.

 

[Buck]

Interesting stuff about Outlook, Fushgi. Not that it will ever be relevant to my clients, but interesting to know just the same. As for Word Perfect after Novel got hold of it .... The very first Novel version was OK, but after that .... 'nuff said.

A customer's system I just upgrade uses Wordperfect. Bloated! It's just like MS Office. Now, OpenOffice, that has more potential. I wish it would work with programs like Quickbooks.

 

[time]

I still use Word Perfect 9, which I think is the first version that Corel brought out. I haven't bought any upgrades because I'm not convinced that they're worthwhile.

It doesn't raise my stress levels anywhere near as much as M$ Office, and has quite a few useful tricks that Word can't do.

Come to think of it, I dislike M$ Office intensely - there are just so many really bad design flaws. I'm always incredulous that it never seems to improve much with each new version; for every positive step there's at least one negative.

 

[time]

Whenever you open a doc it creates a temp file in the same dir as the .doc file.

Yes, you're actually editing the temporary file, which allows other people to still read the unchanged document. Other word processors create temporary files in appropriate directories, it's just Microsoft who are brain dead.

Of course, this is the opposite behaviour to Excel, where you are editing the actual document (and thereby blocking others). Incredibly, the file timestamp is changed as soon as you open the spreadsheet; if you don't save any changes, it overwrites the timestamp with the original when you exit!

So when Excel crashes, or your network connection dies, or you're on Samba as a user different from the document owner, the timestamp remains updated even though you didn't change a bloody thing.

Or your spreadsheet gets corrupted or vanishes in a puff of smoke. Whatever.

 

[Mercutio]

I also still use Wordperfect 9 for linux.
Every time some major library gets updated I have to spend half a day figuring out how to make it work on my machines again, but it's worth not having to deal with word and not having to retrain my fingers to do OpenOffice or something.

 

[mubs]

I'm surprised, Time & Merc. I was a staunch Wordperfect user, having used it from version 4.2. At one employer, they used Word (ver. 2?) and I hated it. But over time, they have really improved it. WP has bugs carried over from several versions. I kept upgrading it till ver. 10, hoping it would improve and the bloat would be gone, but was always disappointed. For the most part, Word/Excel are pretty good. No sw is without design stupidities, and of course, MS Office has its share too.