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"working without Word work file"

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by terrent

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Have you ever seen an error message stating, "You are working without a Word work file and memory is nearly full. Save your work."??? The user is using NT 4.0 sp6a with Word 97. The machine is a P-III with 128MB of memory. Any ideas, please? (And what is a Word work file??)
Thank you!

8 replies

by syscokid

This is just a guess, but I bet under Tools, Options, Save, the Save AutoRecover info every check box or the Always create backup copy check box (or both) are checked, and the machine has no Temp folder in which to create the backup file.

by terrent

Ok, great start! This user does have a habit of losing important stuff ("I know I saved it!"), so the Auto-Recovery function is needed. Three options are chosen on this page: Always create backup copy, Allow background saves, and Save auto-recovery every.... There is a temp folder on this machine (C:\TEMP), but all the backup files are saved in whatever directory the current document is being saved to. (The user first creates, names, and saves the doc before working on it.) Should I specify where to put these backups? If so, how? (Please respond so I can accept your answer.)
Thanks again!

by dklippert

Here's an MS article:

(Type the Q number in the Search box at Support.Microsoft.com)

Errors Opening File If Low Memory or Low Disk Space

Q173908

A "Word work file" is another term for temp files. I would do the regular cleanup actions. Delete any temp files that Word has left around. They start with a Tilde "~" so you can delete ~*.*
Search for and rename/delete any Normal.dot files. There should be only one.

by terrent

The article is close, but not quite. My message states that I'm working without a work file, not that it's full. I've already seen it, in fact. And I do wipe out the temp files regularly.
Thanks for your help!

by dklippert

If ASyscoKid's answer works for you, you can set the Location by going to Tools>Options>File Locations.
You still won't be able to control the location of "regular" tmp file. They go where ever the original document is stored.

by syscokid

If the backups are being saved to the current directory, that's fine, though you can specify a directory under Tools, Options, File Locations, AutoRecovery Files.

However, make sure you give answer 2 some consideration, it may be more on the mark.

by terrent

It looks like a combination of these answers is what eventually worked. If only the points could be split.
Thanks to you both.

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