Excel document recovery

Question

Does anyone know how this process works? It appears that when Excel closes non-gracefully (due to a power outage or system problem) the AutoRecover version of the file is available, but if someone accidentally closes the Excel application, it is not.

I am trying to help a coworker recover an hour of work she lost by accidentally closing Excel, and the knowledge of how this process works within Excel would be useful.

My guess is that Excel deletes the AutoRecover file(s) when it is closed gracefully, but not if it stops unexpectedly. Can anyone confirm this?

She is using Excel 2003.

Thanks.

Answer 1

If she hasn't started working on new documents in Excel, the chances are that they are still stored in C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

If the file isn't there, have a look in Tools->Options->Save, and see where temp files are stored.

Answer 2

As far as I know, excel tries to save autorecovery information when it knows it is crashing. A hard cold reboot could prevent excel from saving autorecovery information. I am guessing this is what happened with your coworker.

You can increase how often autorecovery information is saved. This will be annoying with larger files, since it freezes Excel while saving the autorecover data. To do this, you can go to Tools> Options, click on the "Save" tab, then enter a new time in the "Save autorecovery info every:" box. I usually go with 10 or 15 minutes, since waiting 5 seconds while excel saves something, every 10 minutes, is better than redoing 15 minutes of lost work.

Also, that same location will show where autorecovery data is being saved. Again, go to Tools> Options, click on the "Save" tab.

Answer 3

Hi All,

ecounsis, look in;

C:\Documents and Settings\ {User Name} \Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

For files with the XAR extension.

Make a copy of each and change the extension to xls.

Cross your fingers that one of them is the file you need!

If not, search your systems for any files with the ".XAR" extension - repeat.

Good Luck

Answer 4

Thanks for all the help. Your answers helped me explore how this works. Here is what I found.

The temporary files are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\{User Name}\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel or wherever you tell them to be stored via the Tools|Options|Save tab - but only until Excel closes. When you click the close button, and decline to save your work, the xar file is removed from the disk.