Why do the changes I've made to a document that was emailed to me disappear?

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Does anyone know Microsofts "Official" stance on this...is this a feature or a bug? I've got users who seem to operate this way on a regular basis and this behavior causes them difficulty. I understand there's a "don't do it that way" work around but was wondering what the official response was.

If users are aware of the pitfalls of editing an email attachment without saving it to disk, then don't cry me a river.
You were aware of the pitfalls of editing an attachment inside a email but choose not to practice safe computing habits.
Sort of like repeating hitting your thumb with a hammer.
If it hurts, practice your hammering skills.
Maybe users should purhase I.D.10.T insurance.

This is great!
I made changes in the attachement of the e-mail, forgetting that I did not save it to computer, but at least I clicked save several times during work. When I realised that, after I just closed the document, I felt so bad because I've been working on it a few hours.

Downloading the Handy Recovery 4.0 solved all my problems so easy that I still can not believe. Just read the tips at the beginning and you will need a few minutes to get the file you need. And the best thing is filter which helps you to find it even by name.

I spent half a day editing a brochure under very tight deadlines when I discovered all of my edits disappeared because I had edited the document that was attached to email. In an absolute, utter panic, I searched online for a solution and ended up on this (Ask-Leo) page. You are my saviour, Leo! Thank you, thank you, thank you. I found the doc in my temp directory. Phew!

This feature quit working for a couple of users in our company. they are no longer able to save the attachment with edits. It opens as Read Only. I can't duplicate it on my PC. Any idea how to turn it back on?

Not offhand - could be several things. But they can always save a copy to a location of their own choice which would read/write.

01-Oct-2009

Hi Ronda, the attachements are opening as Read-Only because they are opened from the Preview Pane. If you double-click on the email and then open the docs, you can make changes to them.

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