I always take great care that HE monitors all of my word documents. But as Word tends to save any temporary backup as .tmp files HE begins to monitor those instead of the original .doc file. In the end I have a few 0 bytes files in the history of my docs and lots of history files of tmp files.
That is not my main problem here, just a minor annoyance.

Sometimes when I delete a few not necessary history files, I delete the tmp files in HE.

My biggest concern with HE and word documents is, sometimes when I launch HE to have a look at the history of some of my docs, I notice that HE is not monitoring specific docs anymore. The entire history is gone. Sometimes I still have a few history files when I check the history of the tmp files.

I used to have this exact problem a while back with a previous version of HE. My problem back then was to add single files to HE and not the folder where the files are located. Adding the folder solved my problem for a while, but it still is present.
I have several docs which I use every day in my word doc folder and HE monitors most of them, but sometimes one or two are without a history anymore and HE stopped tracing them.

I there a workaround for this issue? Is it a bug?

Hi Korona,

What you explain definetly sounds like a bug.
I haven't heared of it before though.

I would need to get some information off you. Like what version of windows are you running and what version of Word.

I'm thinking that it might have to do with renaming. I seem to remember that Word creats a temp file and then renames it to .doc at the end.
History Explorer has logic for handling renaming of files though I know it isn't fool proof. So what might be happening is that your .doc file that has several versions is renamed to a .tmp file. When the file is renamed back to .doc HE fails to pick it up as a rename and assumes that the .tmp file was deleted... with all it's versions and a new .doc file was created that shouldn't even be monitored, since the folder it is in isn't set up to include all .doc files.

This is just a thought and might not be correct. What I would need to do is set up an environment like yours and just try to reproduce what happens.

Please do get back to me, and I'll try to find a way to fix it.

/Peter

I am very surprised! Such a friendly support on a Sunday afternoon...

My system:
Win XP Home / Pro SP3
Word 2002 (outdated, I know, but it still suits my needs)

HE Options: Included file types: "Office workers"
HE is monitoring the content of a folder, without the subfolders and a few other files, like .txt, .xls, .jpg, but all the .doc files.

I think your assumption that the cause for my problem is the fact that Word renames the files is correct.
But maybe HE has a few problems that the tmp files will be deleted automatically and I am additionally deleting the history of (most of the) tmp files manually? But this fact shouldn't affect the original .doc file...?

Here is part of the history of a ~WRLxxxx.tmp file:

xxxx.doc Created 1 23.02.2007 0 bytes
xxxx.doc Updated 2 07.09.2007 (the ~WRLxxxx.tmp files is much more recent) 1.22 MB
xxxx.doc Deleted 3 08.09.2007 0 bytes
xxxx.doc Undeleted 4 08.09.2007 1.22 MB
xxxx.doc Updated 5 09.09.2007 1.22 MB
xxxx.doc Updated 6 12.09.2007 1.23 MB
~WRLxxxx.tmp Renamed 7 12.09.2007 1.23 MB
~WRLxxxx.tmp Deleted 8 13.09.2007 0 bytes

The history of xxxx.doc:

xxxx.doc Created 1 23.02.2007 0 bytes (I have manually added this file to HE (once again) last week)
xxxx.doc Updated 2 12.09.2007 1.23 MB

Hope it is helpful and many thanks in advance.

EDIT:
Just found the next file which HE is not monitoring anymore (the yellow star is missing). The history shows a version which I have saved this afternoon... The other files which I have edited today are still traced by HE.
Although HE is monitoring all the tmp files and all the versions of a doc are still present, it is a problem when I accidentally delete the history of the wrong tmp files in HE...

Hi Korona,

Thank you for all the information. It does really help.
I will have to find a way of handling this issue and get back to you.
Though it may take some time to find a solution that is reliable.

What I can do is create a version with the "rename" functionality turned off.
My guess is that that will help you so that your history for a file might be something like
version 1
deleted
version 2
deleted
version 3
This would keep all the versions for you, but it would look a bit strange.

Try this version out and see if it does the trick for the time being:
http://www.exendo.se/download/HE_NoRename.exe

/Peter

Thanks, Peter, for the update. A strange look doesn't matter at all, as long as I can organize my history files.
I will report back asap, it may take a few days though.

Many greetings

Korona

P.S.
The recent files list, accessible through the system tray icon, in V2.1 is not correct. HE shows me a few doc files I haven't edited for a few months and not those I am currently working on, but this is maybe a side-effect of the bug I have reported.

The NoRename version works perfectly.
Your guess with the strange look turned out to be not correct:
Instead of "Deleted" HE displays "Updated".
And so far HE hasn't "forgotten" to monitor some of the doc files.
I am very pleased with this version and now I can finally organize the history of my Word documents more comfortable.
Once again a big thanks to you

Korona