WD97: Windows NT 4.0: "Saving the AutoRecovery File Is Postponed"

After you turn on the "Save AutoRecovery info every" option (on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Save tab), the following error message may be displayed when Word tries to do an AutoRecovery save: NOTE: The "Save AutoRecovery info every" option is turned on by default.

This error message will occur when all of the following conditions are true:

• The Word document has previously been saved to a share on a Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 primary domain controller (PDC), and the share is on a New Technology File System (NTFS) partition.
  -and-
• Share permissions are set to User (Full Control), and NTFS permissions for the share are set to Administrator (Full Control) and <local group name> (Full Control).
  -and-
• You are logged onto a Windows NT 4.0 client machine, and you are a member of either the local shared group or a global shared group which is a member of the local shared group.
  -and-
• The "AutoRecover files" path points to a folder in a NTFS partition on the client machine.

Word copied the security attributes of the saved document and applied them to the temporary file that is to become the latest AutoRecovery file. Word then attempts to rename the temporary file to: The rename fails because the necessary permissions to rename the file are derived from the PDC local group, which is unknown on the client machine. The Save As command fails because a similar rename operation fails.

For additional information about security permissions on an NTFS partition, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To resolve this problem, install Microsoft Office 97 for Windows Service Release 2 (SR2).

To temporarily work around this problem, do one or more of the following:

• Change the AutoRecovery path to a FAT partition.
  
  For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
  77535  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/77535/EN-US/ ) WD: Setting the AutoSave-Path in Word
  
  -or-
• Make the user a member of Workstation\Administrators.
  -or-
• Add domain users to the directory permissions on the server, and give Domain Users full access to the share.
  -or-
• Give existing global groups permissions for the directory.

NOTE: For technical assistance in adding a member to a group or changing permissions for users, please contact Microsoft Technical Support for Windows NT 4.0.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This problem has been corrected in Microsoft Office 97 for Windows Service Release 2 (SR-2).

For additional information about SR-2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

After you close Word, a temporary file may remain in the "AutoRecovery files" location specified on the File Locations tab (click Options on the Tools menu). Since Word copied the security attributes of the saved document and applied them to the temporary file, you may not have the necessary permissions to delete the temporary file.

In addition, if you open a file from a shared folder on a Windows NT server (NTFS partition), you may be unable to save the file to your local folder on your client machine (NTFS partition). This problem may occur if either of the settings of Allow Fast Saves or Allow Background Saves (click Options on the Tools menu and then click the Save tab) are turned off. When you try to do this, you may receive the following error message: