Aaauuuggghhhh!!!!!!! Why would my computer do this?

[klmama]

I spent over an hour this evening working on a document.  I was going back and forth between it and another one I had open.  Then, after looking at the other one for a while, the one I was changing was not up anymore.  I didn't accidentally close it without saving - I would have had to specifically click a box to close it without saving changes.  It was just not up anymore, and the changes I had spent the hour making were gone. I'm :banghead:  that I didn't save it every few minutes, because now I have to find another hour tomorrow to do it again. 

 

Why would my computer do this all of a sudden?  Does this sound like it could be a virus? 

 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

What program were you using?  Some of the newer programs automatically save changes.  

[klmama]

MS Word 2007.  No automatic saving going on here.  Maybe there's a way to set it to do that, but I don't know.  The most recent version of my document was the one from 5:00 this afternoon when I closed it not long after starting it.  The 10:30 version is completely gone.

 

 

 

 

[Arcadia]

MS Word 2007. No automatic saving going on here. Maybe there's a way to set it to do that, but I don't know.

Link on how to set up autosave in word 2007

https://support.office.com/en-in/article/Automatically-save-and-recover-Office-files-5baa2030-9768-4c6c-8d2a-1e10a8d741b1

 

Mine used to crash for no known reason and my guess is that my laptop ran out of memory. Office programs hog the memory of my old laptop.

[Lanny]

Setting the configuration of the program to AutoSave the file, every 10 minutes or so, can save one a lot of grief.

 

Some Applications (WORD 2007 may be one of them) do not release RAM (Memory) when they are closed. They are memory hogs.

 

More RAM is better. Our Dell Latitude E6400s have 4 GB of RAM, which is usually fine. The used Dell Latitude E6410 I won in an eBay auction for my wife, a few weeks ago, has 8 GB of RAM. Because of the faster CPU, etc. that it has, it is much more powerful than her E6400 and that shows in the performance.

 

I hope to be able to win another Dell Latitude E6410 from the same seller, for me, if/when they have one listed on eBay,

 

 8 GB of RAM is the first priority in my list of the hardware configuration I want. That's the maximum RAM the E6410 motherboard will hold.

 

@OP   If your motherboard can hold more RAM, depending on the cost it may be a good investment. 8 GB of RAM for a Dell Latitude E6400 on Crucial.com is about $240 but for a Dell Latitude E6410 it is $50.   I've purchased RAM from Crucial for many different Dell computers over the years and there has never been an issue. 

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/homepage

[klmama]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I went to set up the autosave, and it looks like it was already set up.  ????  That obviously meant nothing.  I couldn't recover the document, because it wasn't where the settings said I should be able to retrieve saved versions.  I did a search, and the only one on my computer was the earlier version.  I'll talk to dh about memory. 

 

 

[Catwoman]

I hate to say it, but it was probably just a weird glitch. :(

 

I have had similar things happen with different software and it is so frustrating! It always seems to be when I have been working hard on something and it would be difficult to have to start all over again.

 

Sorry it happened to you. :grouphug:

[klmama]

Thanks.