How to recover lost e-mail file

How to recover lost e-mail file

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The OS for this was Windows XP Pro with network profile settings.

One of our operators had a bit of a fright when their 8 hours of work on a workbook was, quote "not where I left it yesterday"

Having been sent an excel workbook via e-mail the op had been modifying changing adding and generally doing a whole days work in the workbook. Sure enough, they had been following the adage of 'save, save, save' but unfortunately for them they had not saved the file locally or on network drives.

On completing their task for the day the op had closed the excel file and selected Save, but when they went to close the e-mail in which the workbook arrived, when prompted to save changes to the message they selected No.

Hence the following day the email excel workbook was back to original content. Alar bells and headless chickens spring to mind.

For anyone having experienced similar problem, you may want to try this:

in the users profile (we'll call this user 'myname' for now) on the local c: drive  locate

"C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files"

If you cannot see that folder you may want to use Tools>Folder Options>View>Show Hidden files and folders or alternatively type the address in yourself in the windows explorer address bar

Depending on your internet policies you may see lots and lots of internet files cached from your last browsing experiences.

In the address bar add the folder "\content.outlook"

You may then see 1 or many folders with names such as 5TRE9IQ4  or other such strange alph-numeric combinations

Explore each folder in turn and you could well find the missing saved excel file (amongst lots of other word files and the like which have been opened in outlook)

Just thought I'd share that as Christmas cheer has now overtaken the errant operator who is now cock-a-hoop at having not to do the whole workbook again.

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By gsgordon
23rd Dec 2009 09:24

Vista?

I assume the file location described here is for Windows XP. Can you tell me how to find it in  Vista?

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By alan.falcondale
23rd Dec 2009 12:05

vista+win7

As we understand it the temp files are in:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Low\

 

We are still assessing Win7 for network use and so far the benefits are fair on speed and control.  I'll try and book some time on the test app and see if we can resurrect outlook files as per the XP method

Could Try:

Vista
C:\Users\myname\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook

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