Lost work, no ~df*.tmp file to recover

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FUBARinSFO - 23 Jan 2008 04:29 GMT

HI:

As probably everyone in the known Excel universe knows by now (except
for people like me who suspected this but didn't pay enough
attention), if you exit Excel normally without saving your work there
is no "recovery" file to be recovered, nor .bak file to activate. The
famous ~DF*.tmp files that so many web pages go to great lengths to
describe are released and erased when you exit Excel normally (there
is nothing in the Recycle Bin either, since it's not a user delete).
So all the wonderful internet posts about how to go about recovering
lost work in the event of a power outage fail to point out that if you
exit on purpose, all is indeed lost.

If there is some other answer to the above conclusion, I would indeed
like to hear about it, having just lost two hours work because for
some incomprehensible reason I haven't been saving my intermediate
results every 15 minutes.

-- <identity withheld, pending mental examination>

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Dave Peterson - 23 Jan 2008 12:11 GMT

First, *.tmp files in the folder are not created by excel. I would suspect that
it's and antivirus program that does that.

Second, if you are using xl2002 or higher, there's an option that you can turn
on called autorecovery--this is different from the autosave addin in xl2k and
lower.

In xl2003, it's tools|Options|Save tab

And excel should find anything in that folder the first time you open excel
after a crash.

> HI:
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
>
> -- <identity withheld, pending mental examination>

Signature

Dave Peterson

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Gord Dibben - 23 Jan 2008 17:20 GMT

But if you close the workbook without saving, that is not a crash and the
autorecovery file is deleted in most cases.

But check this out anyway.

Try going to C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

Look for a file similar to ~ar123.xar file with a recent time.

Change name to hopeful.xls and see if it opens and what's in it.

You might get lucky.

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

>And excel should find anything in that folder the first time you open excel
>after a crash.

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FUBARinSFO - 23 Jan 2008 20:03 GMT

Gordon:

No such luck -- no *.xar or ~ar*.* anywhere on local hard drives/My
Computer. (except in an old backup folder on my X drive from February,
2006 -- so it does exist at some point)

Out of remote curiosity (fully expecting the answer to be 'no'), is
there an option to have Excel create .bak files each time the user
saves a file? Or is that a function of some add-on program?

Thanks for your prompt help and confirmation of my (regrettable)
understanding of the problem.

-- Roy Zider

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Gord Dibben - 23 Jan 2008 20:21 GMT

File>Save As>Tools>General Options>Always create backup.
Note: the file extension will be XLK..........not BAK

This is for Excel 2003, don't know about 2007.

For your info.......................................

Autorecovery just saves a temporary file that is deleted when the original is
closed/saved with no incident.

You may want to read this...............

There is no Autosave with Excel 2002 or newer.

Autorecovery from Tools>Options>Save is it. This is not the same as Autosave
which made true incremental saves at intervals and alerted you before saving.

Autorecovery just saves a temporary file which it deletes if Excel closes
normally without incident.

BTW.....Dave Peterson reports that he tried an earlier version of Autosave.xla
in XL2002 and it seemed to work fine.

I have also tried the Autosave.XLA from XL97 on 2002 and 2003 and does the job.

To download the 97 version go here.....

http://www.stat.jmu.edu/trep/Marchat/sp2001/Library.htm

In addition to the above......Jan Karel Pieterse has an addin called AutoSafe
which also doen't alert before saving.

It doesn't overwrite the existing workbook when it saves. It saves to a user
selectable folder. And when it's done, it either deletes these backups (or
puts them in the recycle bin). And the user can always restore the backups
from the recycle bin.

http://www.jkp-ads.com/Download.htm

(look for AutoSafe.zip)

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

>Gordon:
>
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
>
>-- Roy Zider

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Dave Peterson - 23 Jan 2008 20:59 GMT

And just to add to Gord's response.

This setting to create a backup is a workbook setting--it's not an application
setting.

But you can create a template file that has this setting.

Name this file book.xlt and store it in your XLStart folder.

Excel will use this template file whenever you click on the new icon on the
standard toolbar. You'll still have to change the setting for each existing
workbook, though.

> File>Save As>Tools>General Options>Always create backup.
> Note: the file extension will be XLK..........not BAK
[quoted text clipped - 53 lines]
> >
> >-- Roy Zider

Signature

Dave Peterson

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FUBARinSFO - 25 Jan 2008 21:27 GMT

Dave and Gord:

It's hard for me to accept that after all these years there's not a
simple auto-save option with Excel. Even the notion to modify the
current auto-save so as to persist it after the workbook is close
seems not to have occurred to the developers -- perhaps because most
people think that's the way it works (which of course it doesn't).

In reply to some of your comments:

1. File>Save As>Tools>General Options>Always create backup.

I didn't even know this existed -- thanks. I'm using Excel 2003, so
this is OK. But it appears to be workbook specific only -- have to
invoke with each workbook.

2. I have also tried the Autosave.XLA from XL97 on 2002 and 2003 and
does the job.
To download the 97 version go here.....http://www.stat.jmu.edu/trep/
Marchat/sp2001/Library.htm

I downloaded and added the file to Addins -- recognized, options
work. Can't open the code however (Alt-F11) -- password required.
Maybe sometime I'll unpack one of those password crackers and tackle
all the protected addins.

But not autosaving when set to every 1 minute, not prompting to save.
So unclear if it's working on my machine at the moment. There may be
some security problem with XP SP2 that may prevent this from working.
Did save the original as .xlk when it was loaded.

3. In addition to the above......Jan Karel Pieterse has an addin
called AutoSafe
which also doen't alert before saving. http://www.jkp-ads.com/Download.htm
(look for AutoSafe.zip)

Link has moved --> http://www.jkp-ads.com/download.asp (note change
from htm to .asp, that's all).

The program notes make this appear like it has the same problem as
auto recovery saving:

"As soon as a workbook is closed the backup copy is deleted from the
backup directory. If an abnormal termination of Excel occurs, the
backup copies remain on disk, and Autosafe finds them the next time
Excel is started and presents recovery options to the user."

I downloaded this program, and installed. But in order to have it
function properly, it requires the change of a security setting --
Tooll | Macros | Security | Trusted Publishers have to check "Trust
access to Visual Basic Project. That's a pretty general trust level
to enable, it seems to me.

I did go ahead and install it. Unfortunately, there is no option to
persist the backup after normal exit (v3.5 Newtwork version - free
version). It also does not create a backup on program start, so first
10 (default) minutes are unprotected. Also, creates a .tmp file name
unrelated to the workbook.

So on this one, it's not clear to me how this is an improvement over
the vanilla Excel autorecovery saving -- no backup left after exit,
and requires the relaxation of a special security setting as well.

In summary, I guess I'll use the Autosave.xla until something better
turns up.

Thanks for your help.

-- Roy Zider

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FUBARinSFO - 25 Jan 2008 21:37 GMT

> But not autosaving when set to every 1 minute, not prompting to save.
> So unclear if it's working on my machine at the moment. There may be
> some security problem with XP SP2 that may prevent this from working.
> Did save the original as .xlk when it was loaded.

Correction to the above -- is autosaving. Apparently waiting for a
dirty bit flag to be set -- no changes, no saving.

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Gord Dibben - 25 Jan 2008 21:58 GMT

>"As soon as a workbook is closed the backup copy is deleted from the
>backup directory. If an abnormal termination of Excel occurs, the
>backup copies remain on disk, and Autosafe finds them the next time
>Excel is started and presents recovery options to the user."

You can set the autosafe options to send the deleted backup copies to the
recycle bin for later retrieval.

First time you load the add-in through Tools>Add-ins it will open a dialog where
make the settings.

Or you could load Autosafe Setup.xls where you can choose the options.

Note: this workbook contains macros to be enabled, but you only have to run it
once.

>I downloaded this program, and installed. But in order to have it
>function properly, it requires the change of a security setting --
>Tooll | Macros | Security | Trusted Publishers have to check "Trust
>access to Visual Basic Project. That's a pretty general trust level
>to enable, it seems to me.

How and what did you install?

The Autosafe.xla is an add-in and should automatically be trusted.

Unzip the Autosafe.zip to a new folder then run Autosafe Setup.xls which will
give you the options settings and copy autosafe.xla to your Office\Library.

But the AUTOSAVE.xla will do the job so autosafe.xla is not really needed.

Gord

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FUBARinSFO - 26 Jan 2008 03:13 GMT

Gord:

I ran setup.exe, not setup.xls to set up autosafe. I do recall seeing
(or reading) about the backups being bucked to the Recycle Bin, but it
didn't register on me that there is where I would retrieve them, as
you suggested. That is of course the option here, then.

Thanks for your comments, and getting me motivated to at least install
autosave.xla.

-- Roy

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