Word Creates Many Temp Files When You Save Without Closing

• Microsoft Word for Windows, versions 6.0, 6.0a, 6.0c

SYMPTOMS

When you edit a document, including cutting and pasting large amounts of text to the clipboard, and then save the document multiple times, Word creates new temporary files each time you save the file. A result of this behavior is that Word may stop responding (hang) when all the file handles that are available in Microsoft Windows 3.0, 3.1, or 3.11 have been used.

CAUSE

Word creates temporary files to store information it needs to access quickly and to prevent system errors in its file saving scheme. If you open too many files, Microsoft Windows does not have sufficient file handles to allocate to each open file. Word does not delete the temporary files until the document is fully saved (a full save is a non-Fast Save save), or you close the current session of Word.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q89247

TITLE     : How Word for Windows Uses Temporary Files

WORKAROUND

You can work around this problem by periodically closing and reopening the document.