Thanks to both Charles K. and Paul E.


I'm afraid this is one of those cases where the solution is so far above the head of the poser of the question (me) that I wouldn't know where to begin. The fact that (a) no ready-made macro or third-party software exists to address this issue and (b) that Microsoft apparently allows this situation to persist are both puzzling to me.


I have just enough understanding to realize (in retrospect) how complex it might be to intercept a save before it happens and warn the user. According to my limited understanding, there is not a problem copying files to and from detachable media when Windows does so, but only when Word is involved. You (both, I think) suggest that this could stem from the user not removing the drives at the wrong time, and I'm sure this could be true. Personally, I've been quite careful about "safely removing hardware and ejecting media." Am I sure it's 100%? Well...even if it's only 99.9%--


Although my preference would be to have Word be aware of which removable drives are available and specifically warn me whenever I was saving to a removable drive, I would be almost as happy just having a warning screen pop up with every attempted save (or -save as) that says something like "Are you saving to a re-moveable drive? If so, consider NOT doing so." (or similar wording). This would give me time to get used to the idea of "acting like removable media don't exist".


I guess I could put a scotch-taped message on my laptop to warn me (yeah, this is meant to be funny)


Apologies for the length of this post.