oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) (02/08/89)
has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything it just bombs. is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? thank you
vermilye@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye) (02/09/89)
In article <35727@bbn.COM> oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) writes: > >has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, >i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by >send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything >it just bombs. >is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? >thank you Check for a virus. We have been using Word 3.01 & system 6.0.2 with out any problems. Jon R. Vermilye Departmnt of Theatre SUNY Oswego Oswego, NY 13126 315 341 2138
hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Josh Hodas) (02/09/89)
In article <1063@oswego.Oswego.EDU> vermilye@oswego.oswego.edu.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye) writes: >In article <35727@bbn.COM> oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) writes: >> >>has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, >>i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by >>send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything >>it just bombs. >>is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? >>thank you >Check for a virus. We have been using Word 3.01 & system 6.0.2 with >out any problems. > >Jon R. Vermilye ARGGGGGHHHHHH!! No flame intended, but I am really getting tired of every one's first reaction to any glitch to be running for the hills yeling VIRUS!!! First of all, Word is well known as not the most well behaved program. Since we know nothing about what inits John is running (which would complicate the question somewhat) there is little or nothing we can say as yet. Question to john: It is unclear from your message, Is word your overwhelmingly dominant application. That is do you run anything else long enough or frequent ly enough to know if the bomb is occuring in other circumstances. In particular, since the bomb happens even when just sitting doing nothing have you tried just leaving the machine at the finder level doing nothing for a while? I had a machine that was bombing intermittently and randomly and I discovered finally that it would happen even just sitting at the finder for a while. As soon as I disabled my speedup card the system was fine. turns out the processor had gone flakey. Anyway, I'd say you need to send some more specifics about the hardware and software environment before anyone can be of much help. Josh ------------------------- Josh Hodas (hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu) 4223 Pine Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 (215) 222-7112 (home) (215) 898-5423 (school office)
folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (02/09/89)
I have 6.0.2 and Word 3.02 and have had no problems. But I have had weird crashing problems with Word 3.02 in the past (6.0 and 5). My solution was to drag the Word Settings file out of the System Folder. (I say drag it out instead of delete, just in case you have done a lot of preference setting and the "fix" doesn't work). My problems disappeared. This may also help with PageMaker 3.01 bombs when manipulating images, so maybe this should be a standard Mac trick when a program acts up. After trashing my Word Settings file, then setting up new preferences and menus, I locked the new Settings file, and I haven't had a crash since. Wayne Folta (folta@tove.umd.edu 128.8.128.42)
david@jc3b21.UUCP (David Quarles) (02/09/89)
From article <1063@oswego.Oswego.EDU>, by vermilye@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye): =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > In article <35727@bbn.COM> oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) writes: >has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, >i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by >send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything >it just bombs. >is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? >thank you =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= We've used this on several SE's with no problems. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Dave =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= EOT
drc@claris.com (Dennis Cohen) (02/09/89)
In article <7780@netnews.upenn.edu> hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Josh Hodas) writes: >In article <1063@oswego.Oswego.EDU> vermilye@oswego.oswego.edu.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye) writes: >>In article <35727@bbn.COM> oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) writes: >>> >>>has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, >>>i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by >>>send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything >>>it just bombs. >>>is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? ... >First of all, Word is well known as not the most well behaved program. Since >we know nothing about what inits John is running (which would complicate the >question somewhat) there is little or nothing we can say as yet. > ... >Anyway, I'd say you need to send some more specifics about the hardware >and software environment before anyone can be of much help. > I, too, would have to know more. For example, are you running that misbegotten excuse, MacroMaker, on your system? If you are, there is a high probability that something is screwy there. The behaviour you describe sounds an awful lot like the crashes I've seen in Word, LSC, LSP, Turbo Pascal, MPW, and a lot of other products when that insipid little INIT is running around. Are you running any INITs that might be incompatible with 6.0.2, like early versions of hierDA or Moire? A lot of these INITs are compatible if you have the current version -- they had to be upgraded for compatibility. What version of Word are you running? Are you running under Finder or MultiFinder? If MultiFinder, what else is running? This predisposition to blame everything on virii amounts to nothing more that hysteria and does not lead toward a solution to either problem. Dennis Cohen Claris Corp. ------------ Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed above are _MINE_!
tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) (02/10/89)
In article <35727@bbn.COM> oliveira@bbn.com (John Oliveira) writes: > >has anybody experience problems using microsoft word with system 6.0.2, >i've been getting a lot of system bombs just by saving a file or just by >send it to print or even by just looking at the mac without doing anything >it just bombs. >is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy? >thank you I have a friend who uses word - under 6.0.2 and multfinder, while saving, Word "unexpectedly quit" causing him to loose 8 hrs worth of work. This is what he wrote (ARE YOU LISTENING MICROSOFT!! OPEN YOUR EARS!!) ---------- To: harvey@xray.byu Subject: MS Word sucks finally Cc: gshapiro, jayvana, sthamel, tron I have finally said it. I have a good reason to say it. MS Word sucks. This is the first time I have ever had it actually lose something on me. I am going to call up Microsoft support tomorrow morning and find out if there is any way I can recover this thing. I had just spent all of Sunday night (no sleep, sounds like you, Todd!) writing a report for an ME course, and at 10:00, I was just finishing printing it out, as the class started. I ran over to the class to hand it in, and left. Then today in class the professor told me to see him, and he said I had done the report all wrong and had to rewrite the thing and hand it in late and get it marked down for being late. So I said ok. It was my own stupid fault, because I printed out the wrong thing on the AT&T PCs that he told us to print out the report instructions from, and I didn't know how to use them very well, so I never went back to print them out because it was such a chore. Stupid, but what's done is done. So this afternoon I started rewriting the whole thing. I used Word's outliner to organize it, and I was going crazy with MacDraw and Word together in Multifinder to make great organized, illustrated stuff, so that if I couldn't impress the professor with my ability to follow instructions, at least I could impress him by doing it really nicely once I got it done. About half an hour ago I came to a good stopping point (I had been working on this revision non stop from 5:00 until about 1:00--8 FUCKING hours, guys! This is an entire day for Joe Buisinessman! Microsoft, are you listening???), so I decided to go to bed and spend a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon to finish it up and hand it in only two days late. So I hit command-s, it saves fine. Then I do what I always do whenever I save a Word document completely for a while. I do a save as, and turn fast save off. This is a perfectly acceptable thing, and I do it because it will save me quite a bit of disk space on a file of this size (13,400 characters in the character count from Word, and it was 54 K on the disk, which I looked at out of curiosity since I was in multifinder and all I had to do was pop back to the finder, get info, and pop back to Word and do a complete resave on the thing). So I hit save, and hit yes to "do you want to replace Project 1 file?" It gets to 33% saved, and suddenly I get a multifinder error of (3), and multifinder tells me that Word has unexpectedly quit. What? WHAT? Word? No. No, Word. You don't do this to me. Mathematica does this to me. Lightspeed Pascal can do this to me. Even HyperCard can do something like this to me. But not you, Word, good old, very close, very trustworthy friend. And in the middle of a save as? Where I was replacing my only other copy of this file that exists in the universe? Naw, naw! Microsoft isn't STUPID! They wouldn't do a save as that replaces a document by erasing the doc, then writing over it! They would write out a new doc, then delete the old, and rename the new! We learned that "good programming technique" back in Computer 2 with Mr. Huot, right? So I go and examine the situation. Project 1 is now 34K. Well, maybe it did finish and non fast save just saved me 20K. Open it. This document is damaged. I'll open it as a text document for you. Garbage. These are the text representations of the drawings I used in the document, which I don't care about because I saved those each in their own files, anyway. But no text. Panic. Yes. Panic. SHIT. Ok, let's go to Symantec Utilities now and undelete all of the word temp and, heck, let's delete every file I can, just in case! Hey, this looks promising! Word temp 10 (the highest numbered one!) consists of 11K! That sounds like most of the text I typed to me! Open it. yeay. a fucking picture of a fucking drawing i had fucking saved with macdraw alfuckingready. fuck. open other word temps. more macdraws. open word temps in system folder. garbage. scroll throug the garbage. multifinder error 3 again. what the uck is this shit? try again. error again. this time a system bomb. guess there was some bug in my system. ok, that does it. I'm going to call Microsoft customer support to find out when they're opened tomorrow. I did that. 6 to 6 pacific time. great. that means I have to make two calls to california. But if they can save me, it will be worth it. We'll have to see tomorrow morning. Luckily it's wednesday, so I don't have classes and can spend most of the morning trying to recover from this problem. Now it's 2:00, and the screen seems to be growing farther and farther away from me, the fan seems to be getting louder and louder, and the keyboard is feeling mighty strange and distant from my eyes right now. I think this means I'm getting very tired and should be going to bed now. Ha! But I HAD been planning to do that one hour ago! SHIT! SHIT SHI SHI SIHT! FUck stow i cant even type well anymore. goodinght everyone. shit --------- As you can see, he was very irritated, and even moreso at the inept "customer support lines at MICROSOFT. I hope that They're listening... -Rick +----------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ | Richard G. Brewer (TRON) | Power through | rbrewer@wpi.bitnet | | WPI Box 149 | better design | tron@wpi.wpi.edu | | 100 Institute Rd. | and engineering. +--------------------+ | Worcester, Ma 01609-2280 +--------------------+ President: | | (508) 792-3231 | VaNDaL's SaCk | The Apple Guild | +----------------------------+--------------------+--------------------+ | . . . E N D O F L I N E . . . | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
stuartb@microsoft.UUCP (Stuart Burden) (02/10/89)
In article <730@wpi.WPI.EDU> tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) writes: >I have a friend who uses word - under 6.0.2 and multfinder, while saving, Word >"unexpectedly quit" causing him to loose 8 hrs worth of work. This is what he >wrote (ARE YOU LISTENING MICROSOFT!! OPEN YOUR EARS!!) [6K of text consisting mostly of swearing deleted for OBVIOUS reasons] I have passed you comments on. Stu. __Paths to my door:_______________________ microsoft!stuartb@beaver.cs.washington.edu - Usual disclaimer, that all microsoft!stuartb@uw-beaver.arpa - the above is pure fantasy microsoft!stuartb@uunet.UU.NET - and Microsoft only [DE01HB]stuartb@DASNET# {from AppleLink} - gave me the Mountain Dew stuartb@microsoft.uucp {well connected} - to dream it all in a D2012 {@applelink.apple.com - shared acct} - caffeine haze :-) __________________________________________________________________________
ngg@bridge2.3Com.Com (Norman Goodger) (02/11/89)
Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me. Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs to learn how to use Command-S a little more often... just my opinion.... -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-Sysop FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything)
see1@tank.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) (02/11/89)
>I have a friend who uses word - under 6.0.2 and multfinder, while saving, Word >"unexpectedly quit" causing him to loose 8 hrs worth of work.... [profanity deleted] I find it incredible that anyone with ANY computer experience would work on a document for eight hours without saving it. Every computer lab on campus has a sign suggesting that, in order to save themselves and the support staff a lot of grief, they save their work EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES. Enough said. -- Ellen Keyne Seebacher University of Chicago Computing Orgzns. see1@tank.uchicago.edu staff.ellen@chip.uchicago.edu
bmug@garnet.berkeley.edu (BMUG) (02/11/89)
In article <1790@tank.uchicago.edu> see1@tank.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) writes: >>I have a friend who uses word - under 6.0.2 and multfinder, while saving, Word >>"unexpectedly quit" causing him to loose 8 hrs worth of work.... > >[profanity deleted] > >I find it incredible that anyone with ANY computer experience would >work on a document for eight hours without saving it. > >Every computer lab on campus has a sign suggesting that, in order to >save themselves and the support staff a lot of grief, they save >their work EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES. > >Enough said. > >-- >Ellen Keyne Seebacher University of Chicago Computing Orgzns. >see1@tank.uchicago.edu staff.ellen@chip.uchicago.edu Actually, the poor fellow *had* saved; it was only when he did a Save As... that Word barfed and left naught but a file of half-digested bits. The problem was that Word crashed as it was *overwriting* a saved file. As for me, I never use Save As (in ANY program) without changing the name of the saved as file to Something Completely Different. Word is probably not the World's Worst Offender, but it's so widely used that Steve Costa, BMUG's File Messiah Extraordinaire, has had to save more trashed Word documents than any other, by a looooooooooong margin. John Heckendorn /\ BMUG ARPA: bmug@garnet.berkeley.EDU A__A 1442A Walnut St., #62 BITNET: bmug@ucbgarnet |()| Berkeley, CA 94709 | | (415) 549-2684 | |
swerling@caen.engin.umich.edu (Ace Swerling) (02/12/89)
In article <1790@tank.uchicago.edu> see1@tank.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) writes: >>I have a friend who uses word - under 6.0.2 and multfinder, while saving, Word >>"unexpectedly quit" causing him to loose 8 hrs worth of work.... > >[profanity deleted] > >I find it incredible that anyone with ANY computer experience would >work on a document for eight hours without saving it. > >Every computer lab on campus has a sign suggesting that, in order to >save themselves and the support staff a lot of grief, they save >their work EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES. > >Enough said. > >-- >Ellen Keyne Seebacher University of Chicago Computing Orgzns. He said that he did save the work. He said that he was finished and was doing a Save As... with Fast Save turned off to save some disk space. What Word did was to delete his old copy, and try to re-save the file over again. This was not his fault, it was definitely wither Word's or MultiFinder's fault. -Ace swerling@caen.engin.umich.edu
zebolskyd@byuvax.bitnet (02/12/89)
I guess he got what he deserved, but for the wrong reason. The right reason would have been a power failure or some kind of bomb unrelated to saving a file. This chap was doing "the right thing" by saving when Word (or parties unknown, round up the usual suspects) stabbed him in the back. I guess the only protection against such treachery is to save O F T E N to alternating files (Thesis.a and Thesis.b, for example) if disk space permits. One needs two floppies to get Word to work nicely, anyway. Being somewhat paranoid about file loss since a neighbor accidently deleted his Master's thesis, I keep four copies, including a "yesterday's version", of anything of value. A friend had seven copies of his thesis by the time it was complete. This apparent problem with Word was mentioned months ago, but appears so infrequently and with such poor repeatability that is was at first treated like a UFO sighting. Perhaps it will now get some serious attention. Has anyone else had the same unfortunate experience? If so, consider posting the details (with as little profanity as possible) as an aid to finding the bug, whosever bug it is. Lyle D. Gunderson zebolskyd@byuvax.bitnet
ben@tasis.utas.oz (Ben Lian) (02/13/89)
In article <330@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes: > >Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me. >Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by >NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that >this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs >to learn how to use Command-S a little more often... (1) The original posting had to do with apparent incompatiblitites between Word 3.x and 6.0.2. I have been running that combination since 6.0.2 first arrived last year and have had little trouble, at least nothing that I could definitely ascribe to an interaction between the two. It is really difficult to pin down a problem if you run a lot of INITS, CDEVS, DAs etc etc. Which leads me to... (2) I agree completely with Norman. I hadn't intended to post a "should've known better" note, since I've been-there-done-that. But programming is a surprisingly difficult activity -- I doubt that there is a single programmer around who would be prepared to wager his/her life on the correctness of a LARGE application that they have created. You just have to look at something like the U.S. space program and see how many software failures it has experienced over the years to see that no matter how much you test your software, you can rarely be 100% sure that its not going to do something naughty at the wrong time. MS Word isn't part of the space program, but then again it isn't mission-critical software either and probably doesn't go through the same rigour in development. (Tell me I'm wrong Stu :-)) (3) And then, have you ever wondered why most (if not all) the software you buy comes with those seemingly outrageous disclaimers of liability? Some of the loudest complaints I have heard have come from engineers (I have two of them as brothers!) who gripe about the lack of professional responsibility shown by software vendors, who are not prepared to back-up their products. In many engineering disciplines, the engineer can build a certain amount of tolerance into the design (the 'fudge facter'). With programs, they are either correct or wrong. All things being equal, a program either works perfectly and is guaranteed to never crash, or the vendor inserts an escape clause that protects him from years of very expensive litigation. Unpalatable perhaps, but by the same token, also understandable. Ben Lian ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Y H Lian ACSnet: ben@tasis.utas.oz Dept. of EE & CS ARPA : ben%tasis.utas.oz.au@uunet.uu.net University of Tasmania BITnet: munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben@ GPO Box 252C uunet.uu.net (I think) Hobart, Tasmania 7001 UUCP : {enea,hplabs,mcvax,uunet,ukc}! A U S T R A L I A munnari!tasis.utas.oz!ben -----------------------------------------------------------------------
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (02/13/89)
In article <1063@oswego.Oswego.EDU> vermilye@oswego.oswego.edu.Oswego.EDU (Jon R. Vermilye) writes:
<>is word incompatible with 6.0.2 system or is the system buggy?
<>thank you
<Check for a virus. We have been using Word 3.01 & system 6.0.2 with
<out any problems.
The correct version of Word for use with System 6 is 3.02. Call Microsoft
and ask for an update.
Shirley Kehrjs9b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon C. Slenk) (02/14/89)
Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.sys.mac: 10-Feb-89 Re: 6.0.2 and Word Norman Goodger@bridge2.3 (536) Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me. Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs to learn how to use Command-S a little more often... just my opinion.... ----------------- Just _my_ opinion: If software has been advertised to work, it should do so as defined by the company. I doubt that Word's packaging says "This product may erase all your work while saving" because if it did, no one would buy it. They never said it, so it really shouldn't happen (ie the idea of saving a file does not include destroying it irretrievably (sp?)). Thus: while the dude should have saved a lot more, perhaps, and not have used the Save As... selection, it is still microsoft who screwed him up in the end. Sincerely, Jon Slenk / js9b CMU.
tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) (02/15/89)
In article <oXxq4cy00XogA3L24k@andrew.cmu.edu> js9b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon C. Slenk) writes: >Excerpts from ext.nn.comp.sys.mac: 10-Feb-89 Re: 6.0.2 and Word Norman >Goodger@bridge2.3 (536) > >Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me. >Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by >NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that >this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs >to learn how to use Command-S a little more often... > >Just _my_ opinion: If software has been advertised to work, it should do so as >defined by the company. I doubt that Word's packaging says "This product may >erase all your work while saving" because if it did, no one would buy it. They >never said it, so it really shouldn't happen (ie the idea of saving a file does >not include destroying it irretrievably (sp?)). > >Thus: while the dude should have saved a lot more, perhaps, and not have used >the Save As... selection, it is still microsoft who screwed him up in the end. Jon - That person DID [cmd]-[s] VERY frequently. The problem is that MS's saving routines and .tmp files aren't doing what they are supposed to. TEMP files SHOULD CARRY A *COMPLETE* BACKUP OF THE DOCUMENT BEING WORKED ON. SAVES OVER EXISTING FILES SHOULD WORK IN THIS FASHON: 1. WRITE NEW VERSION UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME 2. ERASE OLD VERSION IF NEW VERSION SAVE WAS SUCCESSFUL ELSE ERASE THE CORRUPTED NEW SAVE 3. RENAME THE NEW FILE WITH THE NAME OF THE OLD VERSION These procedures for file saving are taught in BASIC LEVEL CS courses. Perhaps Microsoft should invest in them... Bad programming and incompatability with system software (i.e. MultiFinder) IS MS's fault, also. It is there responsibility to warn their users of this. Richard G. Brewer Systems Consultant Worcester Polytechnic Institute +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+ | Richard G. Brewer (TRON) | Worcester | rbrewer@wpi.bitnet | | WPI Box 149 | Polytechnic | tron@wpi.wpi.edu | | 100 Institute Rd. | Institute +--------------------------+ | Worcester, Ma 01609-2280 +--------------+ "Power through better | | (508) 792-3231 | VaNdaLs Sack | design and engineering" | +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+
folta@tove.umd.edu (Wayne Folta) (02/15/89)
I feel strange defending Microsoft, but all of the blame being placed at their doorstep may not be deserved. Let's face it: the present Mac does not have any memory protection, and that is just asking for instability. That is, any program (including, of course, INITs) that one has run since one last rebooted could be the culprit that causes a crash. Any program can overwrite anyone else's data or code with impunity, so a Word "crash" might actually have been set up by the game one played before bringing up Word, or by the DA one used to do a word count, or by one's nifty screenblanking INIT, or... Of course, Word could be at fault, or even 6.0.2, I am not trying to exhonorate the guilty or blame the victim here. I just want to suggest alternative causes for our problems. [Then there is always the paranoid suggestion that a virus caused a crash. That is about as likely as the beginning programmer's excuse that a compiler bug screwed up their code. :-)] Wayne Folta (folta@tove.umd.edu 128.8.128.42)
stuartb@microsoft.UUCP (Stuart Burden) (02/15/89)
In article <83350@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: | The correct version of Word for use with System 6 is 3.02. Call Microsoft | and ask for an update. The only real reason for getting version 3.02 is if you are using an ImageWriter LQ. Word 3.01 is fine with System Release 6.0.2. | Shirley Kehr Stu. __Paths to my door:_______________________ microsoft!stuartb@beaver.cs.washington.edu - Usual disclaimer, that all microsoft!stuartb@uw-beaver.arpa - the above is pure fantasy microsoft!stuartb@uunet.UU.NET - and Microsoft only [DE01HB]stuartb@DASNET# {from AppleLink} - gave me the Mountain Dew stuartb@microsoft.uucp {well connected} - to dream it all in a D2012 {@applelink.apple.com - shared acct} - caffeine haze :-) __________________________________________________________________________
ngg@bridge2.3Com.Com (Norman Goodger) (02/16/89)
In article js9b+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon C. Slenk) writes: >Just _my_ opinion: If software has been advertised to work, it should do so as >defined by the company. I doubt that Word's packaging says "This product may >erase all your work while saving" because if it did, no one would buy it. They >never said it, so it really shouldn't happen (ie the idea of saving a file does >not include destroying it irretrievably (sp?)). > >Thus: while the dude should have saved a lot more, perhaps, and not have used >the Save As... selection, it is still microsoft who screwed him up in the end. > While my initial opinion still stands, I do concur that Microsoft does take some blame perhaps as the software should be able to deal with some errors. However if you save minimally every 10-15 minutes perhaps more, you are guaranteed of losing only that much work unless a subsequent crash takes the document with it... If you refuse to save often, and trust the computer and the "software" not to screw up, you still get what you ask for, and thats a lot of work down the drain... --- -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-Sysop FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything)
jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dutka) (02/16/89)
In article <330@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes: >Losing 8 hours of work sounds like something he deserved if you aks me. >Anyone foolish enough to trust a computer not to destroy his work by >NOT SAVING FREQUENTLY deserves what he gets...and it appears to me that >this person who is blaming Microsoft for the problem he created...needs >to learn how to use Command-S a little more often... >just my opinion.... It MAY be your opinion, but you know littleof the situation. The guy saved the document pretty often. What killed the document was a crash. Word crashed, and in the process, trashed the file. If it just saved the old doc to a temp file, and THEN wrote the new file, things would have worked out perfectly... +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+ | John A. Dutka (jdutka) | You've heard of the SI system of units, and the | | WPI Box 2308 | British system of units, well, now, we've got | | 100 Institute Road | the WPI System of Units (WSU). More later. | | Worcester, MA 01609-2280 +-------------------------------------------------+ | (508) 792-1949 | BITNET: jdutka@wpi.bitnet | | | INTERNET: jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu | +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
ngg@bridge2.3Com.Com (Norman Goodger) (02/18/89)
In article <866@wpi.wpi.edu> jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dutka) writes: >It MAY be your opinion, but you know littleof the situation. The guy saved >the document pretty often. What killed the document was a crash. Word >crashed, and in the process, trashed the file. If it just saved the old doc >to a temp file, and THEN wrote the new file, things would have worked out >perfectly... There is no guarantee that any file, specially if its a very large file that it will save properly, I don't care what computer your running, if this is the case where the save trashed the file when it crashed then implies the other concepts of file security, ie if its VERY important, and you cannot afford to lose it, back it up. Or do a save as to another volume, that should protect your work. From the original posting it was easy to assume that this person did none of the above, he was not saving regularly, and created a very large file, and it was not backed up since it was obviously important enough to create a major problem for him... I think its logical to braek large documents into smaller documents, they can be easier to deal with and manipulate then large ones and perhaps can save one a real headache should something go wrong.... 15-20 pages should be a easily manipulatable document, though I am not sure how large the document that this person lost, though 8 hours of work would seem to indicate that it was quite large....Perhaps Microsoft should include some computer and docuement safety tips in its manuals...but that should not replace common sense... -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-Sysop FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything)
lim@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Kian-Tat Lim) (02/22/89)
It seems that everyone in this discussion is missing the "Make Backup" feature of Word. If you "Save As" with this option checked (it even shows up under Short Menus), Word always keeps a backup copy of your document, even when doing just "Save"s with command-S. I've even deliberately rebooted the computer during a save and been able to read the Backup of ... file. Try using the capabilities of the program before flaming. -- Kian-Tat Lim (ktl@wagvax.caltech.edu, KTL @ CITCHEM.BITNET, GEnie: K.LIM1)
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (02/22/89)
In article <348@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes: >There is no guarantee that any file, specially if its a very large file >that it will save properly, I don't care what computer your running, if >this is the case where the save trashed the file when it crashed then >implies the other concepts of file security, ie if its VERY important, >and you cannot afford to lose it, back it up. Or do a save as to another >volume, that should protect your work. From the original posting it was >easy to assume that this person did none of the above, he was not saving >regularly, and created a very large file, and it was not backed up since >it was obviously important enough to create a major problem for him.. I think that you are suggesting that he didn't save all day until that one last time. I don't think you can work on one Word document for more than a few hours without filling up the edit buffer, at which point you start getting messages from Word to close windows. If he was doing straight input for eight hours and not making lots of changes or making heavy use of the clipboard, he might have been able to work for eight hours without saving. I think the real safety tip you've offered here is alternate volume saves. Perhaps you should keep a diskette in the drive and every hour or two, save a copy of the document on a diskette as well as the regular (more frequent) saves to the hard disk. It's always a hard lesson when we first lose important work. In his case, he may have been doing regular saves to the hard disk all day and it was that final Save As, when he overwrote the single copy on the hard disk that did him in. >I think its logical to braek large documents into smaller documents, they >can be easier to deal with and manipulate then large ones and perhaps can >save one a real headache should something go wrong.... 15-20 pages should >be a easily manipulatable document, though I am not sure how large the >document that this person lost, It's not very easy to break a single chapter of a book or manual into such small documents. We regularly have 20-50 page chapters and do not run into problems. I feel uncomfortable with anything much larger though. >Perhaps Microsoft should include some computer >and docuement safety tips in its manuals...but that should not replace >common sense... They do have several pages devoted to Long Documents (under that heading in the encyclopedia-like manual). Basically the recommended maximum length for one document is 250 printed pages (.5 million characters). But they recommend breaking long documents up into smaller, more manageable documents and linking them. Shirley Kehr
tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) (02/22/89)
Just an update on the situation with Word. A while back I posted a message which contained a rather lengthy letter I recieved from a friend regarding a problem he had had with Word - He lost 8 hours of work after turning off fast save (which he used frequently while writing), and saving the document under multi-finder. He also had several problems with Microsoft's user support service (i.e. they didn't know what to do, or have any suggestions). Well, we got a letter the ofther day directly from Paul J. Davis, the program manager for WORD for the Mac (Who said screaming bloody murder doesn't work?). He didn't like how we flamed on word publicly. Fair enough. We're sorry, but if MS's save procedure is the same as the one we've been discussing, then why the heck didn't those temp files have a backup for the document? We (Jay and I) set out to find the answer. Here are our discoveries. WORD doesn't like it when you run 6.02 with MultiFinder and TOPS. Period. Through trial and error we discovered this, so be forewarned. Microsoft - take heed, and be sure that this incompatibility doesn't exist in 4.0, as this combination of software is becoming more and more popular, judging from the places I've worked over the summer, and the news I've recieved over the net. Richard G. Brewer Mechanical Engineer in the Making (1991) +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+ | Richard G. Brewer (TRON) | Worcester | rbrewer@wpi.bitnet | | WPI Box 149 | Polytechnic | tron@wpi.wpi.edu | | 100 Institute Rd. | Institute +--------------------------+ | Worcester, Ma 01609-2280 +--------------+ "Power through better | | (508) 792-3231 | VaNdaLs Sack | design and engineering" | +----------------------------+--------------+--------------------------+
pv9y@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (02/23/89)
In article <348@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes: >In article <866@wpi.wpi.edu> jdutka@wpi.wpi.edu (John Dutka) writes: >>It MAY be your opinion, but you know littleof the situation. The guy saved >>the document pretty often. What killed the document was a crash. Word >>crashed, and in the process, trashed the file. If it just saved the old doc >>to a temp file, and THEN wrote the new file, things would have worked out >>perfectly... Of course if he'd been using WordPerfect, that program that all of you seem to hate, he would have had the option of doing timed backups to a completely different file, so even if the program does crash, as all do eventually, you lose only a few minutes of work. The timed backup to a separate file strikes me as the safest method since I've lost a number of files to WriteNow when I save and it runs out of space or crashes during the write, at which point it has deleted the original file but not saved the new copy because of the error. I'll admit WordPerfect has its faults, but sticking with the Mac interface isn't really the main one. Word is equally, if not more so, off base when it comes to standardization, and Word is the absolute worst program to consult on since you have no way of figuring out why the program is doing something odd. With WordPerfect, the codes make it extremely clear (with the exception of some order problems (ie which codes come first), which no one has quite pinned down on the PC version - I've never run into it on the Mac version) what is happening at all times. Adam
cramer@athens.iex.com (Bill Cramer) (02/23/89)
In article [a whole bunch of 'em] ...
Well, I've watched this thread go long enough without inserting my own
two cents. Everyone has their own opinion -- MS is to blame, Apple
is to blame, the original poster is to blame, the lords of Cobol are
to blame, ...
Speaking as someone who has a made a living (you call that living?)
writing a fair stack of books, specs, manuals, and the like, I can
unequivically say "doo doo happens". My fault, your fault, nobody's
fault -- whether the trashed files come as a result of a bad program,
freak lightning, the washing machine entering the spin cycle, or my
own sloppiness ("whoa, lunchtime, let me just slam this file back out
to the disk under a new name and ... ARGH!") -- at some point you're
going to end up with "your life's work" sitting trapped in an
unreadable file.
Anyways, having been in the same boat as the original poster, I
can sympathize with his loss but not his whine. It just does
not make any sense to have a single copy of any file that is in
a state of flux -- there are too many things that can go wrong.
The only **sane** approach is to save off the files incrementally
("mydoc at 10:00", "mydoc at 11:00", etc.)
Some systems will do this for you (PC Wordstar makes a *.bak file
for you, the DEC operating systems VMS and RSX both append version
numbers every time you save a file). With MS Word, you'll have
to be a little bit conscientious (and conscious:-) when you save
your work (what's the cost of an extra floppy for all those backups
in comparison to eight hours of your time???).
Bottom line, if you expect the worst, then you'll be ready for it
with backups in hand; if you take the Pollyanna approach, then
you get what you pay for. But don't whine on the net -- it's
demeaning to you and annoying for the rest of us.
Bill Cramer
IEX Corporation
{uunet,convex,killer}!iex!cramer
(The above opinions do not reflect those of IEX Corporation. In
fact, 20 minutes from now they probably won't even reflect mine.)carl@webster.sybase.com (Carl Resnikoff) (02/24/89)
In article <348@bridge2.3Com.Com> ngg@bridge2.3Com.com (Norman Goodger) writes: > >There is no guarantee that any file, specially if its a very large file >that it will save properly, I don't care what computer your running, "Real" operating systems, like VAX VMS, have transaction systems. If your machine crashes/runs out disk space in the middle of a save, you get your file in a consistant state, although it may not be the most recent copy. I understand the constraints of trying to build a small, affordable machine, but I'll be glad when Apple and other micros catch up to at least the 1970's in operating system technology. Carl sun!sybase!carl
kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) (03/01/89)
In article <962@wpi.wpi.edu> tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) writes:
<WORD doesn't like it when you run 6.02 with MultiFinder and TOPS. Period.
<Through trial and error we discovered this, so be forewarned. Microsoft -
<take heed, and be sure that this incompatibility doesn't exist in 4.0, as this
<combination of software is becoming more and more popular, judging from the
<places I've worked over the summer, and the news I've recieved over the net.
What happens? We just upgraded all machines to 6.02 and some people have
already been running Word 3.02 with TOPS for some time. I'm one of the
few who refuses to use TOPS, so I can't test anything.
Shirley Kehrrusty@hodge.UUCP ( System Manager) (03/02/89)
In article <962@wpi.wpi.edu>, tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) writes: > WORD doesn't like it when you run 6.02 with MultiFinder and TOPS. Period. > Through trial and error we discovered this, so be forewarned. Microsoft - > take heed, and be sure that this incompatibility doesn't exist in 4.0, as this > combination of software is becoming more and more popular, judging from the > places I've worked over the summer, and the news I've recieved over the net. Oh really? Specifically, how? I've used this combination (6.1/6.0.2) with Tops 2.0 as well as 2.1, and have had no obvious problems. Can you be more specific? I just finished a 200 page document that had many chapters created either in Word on MS-DOS or Wordstar, imported them into the Mac, and used Tops to do it. No problems. (Well, other than what Word always has after complex editing sessions with a 400k file with lots of embedded graphics). -- Rusty "No Bugs" Hodge, 1588 N. Batavia St. Orange, CA 92667 Tel (714) 974-6300 rusty@hodge.cts.com [uunet zardoz vdelta crash]!hodge!rusty FAX (714) 921-8038
mdh@srhqla.UUCP (Matt Hardin) (03/02/89)
In article <84864@felix.UUCP> kehr@felix.UUCP (Shirley Kehr) writes: >In article <962@wpi.wpi.edu> tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) writes: > ><WORD doesn't like it when you run 6.02 with MultiFinder and TOPS. Period. .... > >What happens? We just upgraded all machines to 6.02 and some people have >already been running Word 3.02 with TOPS for some time. I'm one of the >few who refuses to use TOPS, so I can't test anything. > >Shirley Kehr We just moved from the Omninet networking system to Appletalk/Appleshare. We're using CAP on a Pyramid 9825 as the file server until Cayman works the bugs out of their AFP-NFS translation stuff (it's O.K., we always break things - even thoroughly debugged software!). MS Word (3.02 no less) occasionally munches files as they are being saved and crashes while exiting with or without saving changes... I've warned our Word users to save alternately to two files using SAVE AS but (sigh) they don't always do that and then they come complaining to me. We're using system 6.0.2 and Appleshare, and I am concerned about the sudden problems we are having with Word - especially in light of the recent change to Appleshare. I have been watching the articles that have been posted (thanks all!) and I am wondering if Word has a problem dealing with networks under 6.0.2, or what??? No other applications we use are giving us this kind of grief. I am aware of a bug in CAP50 which could explain some of the file munching, but not the frequent crashing. In any case, I'll withhold final judgement on the viability of Word as our word processor of choice until I get the CAP patches and install them. I would like to hear from other users of MS Word using Appleshare/CAP, and, please the deity, maybe even from Microsoft. Matt Hardin SilentRadio Headquarters, Los Angeles UUCP: {csun,pyramid,pcabell}!srhqla!mdh Smart mailers use: mdh@srhqla.UUCP