Word 2007 cannot save file in Vista and Avast Home

[wtckl]

I'm having a problem with saving file in Word 2007, apparently caused by Avast. I'm running on a laptop with Windows Vista Ultimate and Avast Home Edition (Build 4.7.942) both with the latest updates/patches. The Windows Vista system drive is a NTFS partition while my other partitions are FAT32.

The problem I'm facing is that whenever I create a file with Word 2007 and try to save it in my FAT32 partition, it gives me the error "Word cannot complete the save due to a file permission error", resulting in the lost of my original document file, and automatically created a "~WRLxxxx.tmp" file which cannot be deleted until reboot, xxxx is a random number.  This ".tmp" file is exactly the same size as my original word document.  The original file is a ".doc" file but not the latest format ".docx". However, this problem did not occur when I try to save the file in my Vista system partition, which is NTFS.

I've done some googling on the internet and found that some people are having the same problem when running Windows One Care, leading me to suspect that whether the same case happens to Avast.  Hence I uninstalled Avast Home Edition and repeat the same steps above.  Voila.... problem disappeared and everything appeared to have run smoothly. I can create and save all my Word 2007 documents without any problem in my FAT32 partition.  However, when I reinstalled Avast, the same old problem resurface again    Note that I have also tried stopping the On-Access Protection but the problem still persisted.

I wonder if there is anyone having the same problem as I do? Is there anything I can do with Avast to resolve the problem?

[Lisandro]

Apparently caused by Avast

I can't see 'avast' behavior here... but the problem disappeared when you uninstalled avast...
File permission error on FAT32? Hmmm strange... are you using dual boot system?
Hope Alwil team could take a look on this...

[wtckl]

Hi, I'm dual booting with Windows XP which is in another NTFS partition.  But I've never worked on this partition while I'm operating on Windows Vista, fear of corrupting the XP partition. Since I'm saving my word document on a separate FAT32 partition, and AFAIK, FAT32 doesn't allow access permission setting, I'm kinda perplexed as to why this is happening on a FAT32 partition.

According to one of the forums on Microsoft,
http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PageIndex=2&SiteID=2&PostID=1088501&PageID=0

one of the messages seems to imply that certain A/V may treat ".tmp" files as virus.  Could this be the reason? However I'm not getting any warning from Avast that a virus had been detected. The ".tmp" file was simply locked and cannot be deleted, and my guess was that it's more likely due to zombie file handle opened by Word 2007 after the save error.

[Lisandro]

Hi, I'm dual booting with Windows XP which is in another NTFS partition.

That could be the problem as both in XP and Vista there is an Admin account, the users of one aren't recognized by the other, etc.

But I've never worked on this partition while I'm operating on Windows Vista, fear of corrupting the XP partition.

The operational system always work, wanting you or not... It creates System Volume Information folder (System Restore), a different Recycle Bin folder, etc.

Since I'm saving my word document on a separate FAT32 partition, and AFAIK, FAT32 doesn't allow access permission setting, I'm kinda perplexed as to why this is happening on a FAT32 partition.

Fully agree, I'm astonished too...

one of the messages seems to imply that certain A/V may treat ".tmp" files as virus.  Could this be the reason? However I'm not getting any warning from Avast that a virus had been detected. The ".tmp" file was simply locked and cannot be deleted, and my guess was that it's more likely due to zombie file handle opened by Word 2007 after the save error.

Look, this is easy for M$ to say... avast will detect a tmp file as infected IF it is infected, not by the reason of being temporary...
Although, I can't imagine how to help you further... The FAT32 system shouldn't have access problems by both OS.

[wtckl]

But I've never worked on this partition while I'm operating on Windows Vista, fear of corrupting the XP partition.

The operational system always work, wanting you or not... It creates System Volume Information folder (System Restore), a different Recycle Bin folder, etc.

I fully agree that certain system folders will be created on both NTFS partitions whether I like it or not, but that is exactly the reason why I'm storing my data on a separate FAT32 partition, trying to avoid the conflict of user access permission which most certainly will happen in NTFS.

However, I found a partial workaround for this problem. I found that Standard Shield always scan this folder while I am saving a word document:
E:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office\Recent
together with the ".LNK", ".TMP" and ".DOC" files associated with the opened word document.

Then I tried to modify the scan exclusion list of the Standard Shield (On-Access Protection -> Standard Shield -> Customize -> Advanced).  I've first added "*.TMP" to the exclusion list, but it's no good. Word 2007 is still creating a copy of zombie "~WRLxxxx.tmp" for each save attempt. Then I've added both "*.DOC" and "*.TMP" to the exclusion list. This seems to have partially solved the problem. Although I'm still getting the same error message on the first save attempt of each editing session, I could still hit the "retry" button which is one of the options following the error message. It's then possible to save the document with the original filename without creating the zombie "~WRLxxxx.tmp". Subsequent save attempts during the same editing session succeeded without problem.

I wonder if this implies that the Standard Shield is interfering with the Word 2007 file saving procedure? Would there be any full resolution to this problem? If this is actually a problem with M$ Office, I would have to try resolving with them.....

[wtckl]

Sigh..... still couldn't find a complete solution to this problem, and the error message is getting on my nerves now. Guess I'll have to ditch Avast for the time being, thou I really like some of the features offered by Avast.  Hopefully the problem will be resolved in the next update. Until then, I'll have to try other a/v...