*.tmp files in template folder? (any)

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If you have the time, could you please check in your template folder if there are any ~WRL####.tmp files or restored documents in it?
You’d have to set the template folder to display hidden files.

Temporary files in template folder
~WRL####.tmp files are there right now
restored documents are there right now
other temporary files are there right now
I remember having seen temporary files in the past
I have never seen any
I just want to view the results of the poll

The reason I ask: A lot of users somehow manage to save some document as Normal.dot.
I am wondering if the reason might be that some temporary document file gets saved in the template folder after a crash, and Word “restores” it as a new Normal.Dot the next time Word is started.

Klaus

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Klaus,

Nice poll setup. You might want to add one more option, which is “Never looked” – which is what my response might be! Seriously though, under what conditions would a temporary document file get saved in the template folder after a crash (as opposed to some other folder)? – does Word tend to load up the template folder with temp files (as I said, I’ve never looked…)

Gary

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Temp files are included in the templates, startup, and any other folders, that contain attached templates, global templates or open documents.

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Hi everybody,

Thank you all for the feedback and participation in the poll.

What I am curious about is Gary’s question: Why would any *.tmp files of documents end up in the template folder… I’m pretty sure I didn’t put them there…

As far as my experiments went, temporary template files always had the form ~$Normal.dot…, never ~WRL####.tmp, and I opened the latter to make sure that they were documents.

I hope more loungers will look in the template folder and answer the poll, so that Phil’s error will average out

Klaus

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I just had a look at the three ~WRLxxx.tmp files in my Templates folder. They are all copies of one of my templates that I have been editing quite a lot lately – so I guess they have been left behind when Word crashed during an edit of the template.

StuartR

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Klaus,

I’ve got to amend my answer, after seeing Stuart’s. I’ve never looked in the templates folder which contains Normal.dot, but in the template folders where we keep all of our custom templates, yes I’ve seen those temp WRL files as well. But as Stuart indicated, these are associated with editing a template and having Word crash – I’m sure none of these were temp files for documents that didn’t belong in the templates folder.

My question in the other post may have been a little misleading – I’ve never seen document temp files in the templates folder, but was interpreting your original post to be indicating that you had – so was wondering why that might be… (hope this makes sense)

Gary

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Hi Gary,

Yes, I did find document (not template) temp-files in my template folder twice in the last weeks, which led to my “research”.

As I indicated, I suspected that the temporary files from documents might be accidentally saved in the template folder after a crash, and be “recovered” as Normal.dot the next time Word is started.

I just made an experiment: Edited a template, crashed Word, then exchanged the template’s ~WRL0004.tmp file in the template folder with a renamed temp-file of a document, finally started Word to let it recover the template.

Stuart is right, of course; ~WRL####.tmp files are produced when editing templates (else my theory wouldn’t have made much sense ).

The template was recovered fine (not the document in the temp-file), and only the AutoRecovery file *.as$ seems to be used.
So I guess my original theory doesn’t pass a reality check.

In any case, I’ll keep deleting temporary files wherever they appear, just for good measure.

Klaus

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Hi Klaus:
I screwed up the poll (by 1). I answered too quickly. I’ve never seen ~WRL####.tmp files in the template folder. They’re absolutely essential, of course. Each save is written to such a file & the old one is renamed to the original file, at least when working properly. They are normally in the same folder as the original file unless your AutoExec.bat file has a line:

set tmp=temp

But that slows down Word slightly. I’m not sure where the changes to normal.dot are stored. You might find more information in:
WD2000: How Word for Windows Uses Temporary Files

Cheers,

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