Comments for My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

Comment from dunstergirl on 2008-05-22

2008-05-23T06:37:14Z

I've used Word's (and other MS Office programs)autosave feature for years - set to every 5 minutes, and it has saved me untold minutes/hours of work when the power fails, the computer freezes or what have you. It actually works better than most MS Office features IMHO.

Sometimes I remember to save manually, but often not, so it's well worth setting the autosave to something near-term, every 5 minutes has worked very well for me over the years.

Cheers,
Lelani

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A comment on: My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

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Comment from Fred on 2008-05-22

2008-05-22T11:00:35Z

A similar bad one is is situations like now: typing comments into a page or forum, then submitting it only to have it say "unexpected error, now your done", I make it a habit before I submit I select all the text, right click, copy, then if all goes well I forget it, and if it plays up I can paste it back in.

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A comment on: My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

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Comment from Stuart Ball on 2008-05-20

2008-05-20T19:22:43Z

I totally agree with Leo. I've hit Ctrl-S so often in my years as a teacher, I think the nerves and muscles involved have become hardwired. I've been working with computers since my first Commodore 64 and my school's Apple II's. It didn't take too many lost tests, lab instructions, and grade book pages before I bought into the mantra of save...save...save, and then save again. Whenever I pause to collect my thoughts, it's Ctrl-S. At the end of each paragraph, it's Ctrl-S. When I transfer the toothbrush from one side of my mouth to the other, it's ... no, strike that one. I never need to retype more than 5 minutes of work.

There are other tricks, too. When writing long e-mails, do the composition in a simple text file. Then, if you need to open a search box or look up a file on your computer or network, everything you've written is still there. (Assuming, of course, that you saved before you opened another window or tab.) When you're done writing, copy and paste into the body of the e-mail. As an added bonus, you have the text of your message stored in a separate file.

One pet peeve of mine is software that uses anything other than the standard key sequences (Ctrl-S, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, etc). It's much better now than a few years ago, thanks to the proliferation of standards for Windows (and Macs, I assume, although I know almost nothing about them). But there is still the occasional "free spirit" programmer who thinks it is good for users to reexamine their habits. They should be exiled to a deserted island to ponder their misguided notions.

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A comment on: My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

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Comment from Steve Burgess on 2008-05-20

2008-05-20T17:27:07Z

Leo,
I agree with what you've said - but what if starting over isn't an option or represents many hours of work? Then a (one of the possibly multiple) temporary file might be valuable, even though it might not contain the most recent changes to the (formerly) active document. And as the computer froze, it probably didn't have time to deleted the temporary, invisible file it was creating while drafting the "real" document. So, one might go to a high level folder, select Tools:Folder Options:View:"Show hidden files and folders". Then, using the Start:Search utility, search for unique text that ought to be in a cell in the spreadsheet. Then they should change that option back to "Do not show hidden files and folders"
Not too complicated, a little dangerous, but maybe not such a bad idea if starting over means hours of work, or completely lost. Although the white paper I reference here is oriented toward lawyers, it discusses how these multiple temporary invisible files get formed: http://www.burgessforensics.com/article_discovery.php

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A comment on: My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

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Comment from Mark on 2008-05-17

2008-05-18T01:42:21Z

Leo,

I have to give the latest version of Office props on this one (though I rarely do). Office 2007 and possibly earlier versions, have an auto recovery feature. It's not something I rely on in lieu of saving frequently, but it has saved me retyping a few paragraphs now and again when I get the random crashes that MS OS's are well known for.

I'm not sure if this is tied to the auto save feature or how it works, but if the system crashes, after I reboot, the next time I open the program, Word will say "you didn't save these files before you closed, now what?".

Again, NOT to be used instead of backing up, but you can't save ever minuet, but it can help. Now what I don't know is if this works when the actual office application crashes and burns. Ordinarily it's another component that fails.

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A comment on: My computer froze, and I lost my work in progress - what can I do?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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