Hey everyone,
Had a quick question. An associate of mine had accidentally saved a version of her PowerPoint that was incorrect, and transferred that copy to her flash drive, losing 10 slides. I came in and helped her locate the file under Manage Versions. We found the correct version, recovered it, and saw the beauty of her 10 slides in a PowerPoint. We tried saving it under the same name and it would not let us because the newer, incorrect version was open. I closed it, then tried saving the correct PowerPoint under the name of the original document, and it got to the point of 100%, and then PowerPoint crashed. When the program reopened, it had restored a version from hours ago (the first AutoSave), before the 10 slides were added (so not even the most recent copy). When I go to Manage Versions, the (4) previous versions had disappeared.

She has already recreated the slides, but I want to get a better understanding of AutoRecover, where it is saved, and why the heck this program crashed when I tried to save it. I am not sure why when PowerPoint recovered from it's crash it restored the presentation's version to the earliest AutoSave either. Thanks for your time everyone!



Dan

I can only give you a partial answer

Autorecovery files are not the same as previous versions. Autorcovery files (if enabled) are usually stored in the TEMP folder in the format pptxxx.tmp (where xxx is a number) BUT they are ONLY used in the event of an unusual shutdown (like a crash) if the close is normal they are deleted.

Searching for ppt*.tmp may find any but there are likely to be none.

How were you looking for the previous versions from FILE > Info or by right clicking an icon in a folder?

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Hey John,
Thanks for the email back! I found the original 4 autosave files through PowerPoint by clicking on File > Info > Manage Versions. They were originally there, and when I recovered the correct version, I tried to save it and the program crashed. When it recovered from the crash, it opened back up and had opened the very first version (which I had never recovered). All other existing versions (including the correct one I had tried to save) were not in Manage Versions anymore. Like I said, no big deal now that it is all taken care of, but trying to get a better understanding of this for the future.

Thanks!

Dan