Another m$ attempt to eliminate floppys

OK, this has always worked, but now it's broken.

XP SP2, Office 2003 both fully patched. Some recent patch, probably an office patch broke this ages-old mechanism for keeping backup floppys.

Open a word doc from a floppy.
Make a change.
Save it (same floppy, click the save icon)
Remove the original and put in a backup floppy.
Save it again (click the save icon).

Doesn't work any more. Instead you get "file permission error a:\", or
"check to make sure door is closed and a valid floppy or CD is inserted".

duh. Word isn't recognizing the disk change anymore.

anyone got a workaround? ( BTW, this is a college student environment. )

Issue is to walk away from the machine with a floppy and a backup floppy of your work.

I know, save it to the desktop, open it again, save it again to the backup floppy. That's bogus, to say the least. Save As doesn't seem to work either for the backup. Still barfs with an error message.

If m$ really wants to get rid of floppys, they should find a less-annoying way to go about it.

Working with Word documents directly on diskettes
has been one of those 'not recommended' things for
a few versions

Word creates temporary work files in the folder/drive
where the document was opened. When you changed the
diskette it can't find the files or the directory
structure it was using.

You can save it to the hard drive and then in File=Open
right click the file name and use Send to and select the
diskette drive.

If you are going to work with Word documents on diskette
(not recommended), use the setting in Tools=Options
to 'Make local copy' when starting.

=======
"fireftr" wrote in message ...

OK, this has always worked, but now it's broken.

XP SP2, Office 2003 both fully patched. Some recent patch, probably an
office patch broke this ages-old mechanism for keeping backup floppys.

Open a word doc from a floppy.
Make a change.
Save it (same floppy, click the save icon)
Remove the original and put in a backup floppy.
Save it again (click the save icon).

Doesn't work any more. Instead you get "file permission error a:\",
or
"check to make sure door is closed and a valid floppy or CD is
inserted".

duh. Word isn't recognizing the disk change anymore.

anyone got a workaround? ( BTW, this is a college student environment.
)

Issue is to walk away from the machine with a floppy and a backup
floppy of your work.

I know, save it to the desktop, open it again, save it again to the
backup floppy. That's bogus, to say the least. Save As doesn't seem
to work either for the backup. Still barfs with an error message.

If m$ really wants to get rid of floppys, they should find a
less-annoying way to go about it.


--
fireftr

I neglected to mention that all of the save options are turned off, but you are right, there is a tmp that is getting in the way. Nevertheless, it was working up until recently.

I am aware of the hard disk workaround, but we discourage students from using the hard drives for anything. Deep Freeze is operational, and shutdown means everything that "was" on the hard drive is gone. Inadvertent shutdowns are a way of life at the university.

BTW, ticking the "make local copy" does not work. The tmp is still used on the working floppy, producing same problems when floppy is changed.

2nd BTW, "send to" does not work. Instead of saving it to a:, you get error message "The target can not handle this type of document".

The question is how do you tell Word to put it's bloody temp files somewhere OTHER THAN the current document directory. There doesn't appear to be a way to do this, but it sure is a nuisance.

Originally Posted by Bob Buckland ?:-\)

Working with Word documents directly on diskettes
has been one of those 'not recommended' things for
a few versions

Word creates temporary work files in the folder/drive
where the document was opened. When you changed the
diskette it can't find the files or the directory
structure it was using.

If you are going to work with Word documents on diskette
(not recommended), use the setting in Tools=Options
to 'Make local copy' when starting.