How to stop server-generated Word .DOCs from saving with "_files" folders?

Question

I have a Word .DOCument that's being generated by a (classic ASP) server. It's an HTML file that's being output as a .DOC using the application/msword content type. The document is generated fine, saves fine, opens up fine in Word, and is fully editable...

The problem occurs on the next document save in Word. A folder is created in the document's directory with the name "<filename>_files" -- just as if you were saving a web page in IE. Inside this folder are three files: colorschememapping.xml, filelist.xml and themedata.thmx. This happens when originally generating the document using IE or Firefox.

-> How can I prevent these _files folders from being created when saving in Microsoft Word?

(flow: users clicks link in browser, Save (.doc) As..., open .doc in MS Word, edit, save -> "_files" folder)

Answer 1

Word 2007 and 2010 default to multi file HTML documents, linking the document to the content files. This is the default behavior for HTML based documents.

The only way around it, that I've found, is to create a real Word Doc without basing it on HTML, or the user has the select "Single File Web Page" when they do a Save As.

Answer 2

If your output isn't too complicated try using RTF. I've had a decent amount of success by outputting RTF files with a .doc extension.