Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 4

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August 4

UMTS flow of events

Good day. can any body answer me about the general procedure that happened when we use an external modem assigned to a GSM network to browes a website?

i want to ask about the path of the request/responds, and the functions of every node in the UMTS network.

Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ammarissa (talk • contribs) 00:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The external modem first contacts the active-active pro-node to establish the time sync, which is based of the gov atomic clocks. This prevents bounced signals and other interference from interfering with the signal. After syncing is done it authenticates with the active-passive cluster using the identification string assigned to that device along with a salted cache of the date. The active-passive node checks your string and salted date against a list of active devices and if allowed grants access to the network. --mboverload@ 03:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

After that it connects to Wikipedia and trys to get it to answer homework questions. =) Sorry mate, we literally couldn't give you the answer if we wanted to. The answer and the wording your teacher is looking for is in the textbook. --mboverload@ 03:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Youtube

Youtube is just ridiculously slow from my house, and has been for a few days. I was wondering if youtube was as slow for everyone else. When I stream a video, I actually have to hit the pause button and wait several minutes; sometimes, it's freezing altogether. It also might be a problem with Comcast though; I know they've had some legal trouble recently with not providing full access to certain online material. Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It could be Comcast. It could be your physical wiring connecting you to the Internet. It could be your computer. There are many possibly problems (far too many to go into detail about). In order to have any shot at diagnosing the problem, you need to experiment further. Is it ALL computers from your house? Is it ONLY YouTube? What other computers have you tried? Both Wireless and hardwired? What other video streaming sites have you tried? -- kainaw™ 02:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Ha ha, now I am a programmer, so I have done all that. No, other sites are plenty fast, and yes, other computers in the house are slow (we even restarted the wireless router). The thing that has me thinking it's youtube is that http://tubezoid.com is slow too. Have you tried doing any downloading from youtube? Magog the Ogre (talk) 02:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Comcast is a nasty company that blocks sites and tools that compete with them. Like bittorrent. Or things that compete with Video On Demand. Like YouTube! --mboverload@ 03:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

YouTube is at its usual speed form my computer. This video, which is 4 minutes and 43 seconds long, was fully buffered after 1 minute and 5 seconds. Downloading the video from Tubezoid took almost exactly the same amount of time. From Shijiazhuang, the download time was 58 seconds. --Bowlhover (talk) 03:58, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

How about downloading the higher quality version, however slowly, via keepvid.com; then you can watch it whenever you want, served up as fast as your own computer can supply it. -- Hoary (talk) 09:38, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

[1]. Get to it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 08:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Virus

Please answer quickly, because this is important.

My computer has been overflowed with viruses. I cannot clean the viruses because I have to register the anti-virus software, which is difficult because I'm a child. My computer still works (now, at least), but I cannot access Control Panel or Task Manager and I cannot access my hard drive and disc drive from My Computer. And the computer slows down when it tries to perform certain tasks. Please tell me how to eliminate these viruses, because if I cannot find a solution fast, my computer will crash! (P.S. I am using my laptop at the moment.) Les Games (talk) 09:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe your parents could help. When the anti-virus software was bought, it should probably come with big long number called a serial number, which you need to type in before it works. What is the Anti-Virus called? Is it McAfee? There might be some free anti-virus, which you don't need a serial number for.78.144.191.13 (talk) 09:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

First, if your sick computer is connected to a LAN or otherwise connected to the internet, disconnect it. I mean, physically unplug from it whatever cable connects it to the rest of the world. Ignore any angry message that this might bring.

Because it's free, ClamWin won't need registration. Download it with your healthy computer and somehow get it onto your sick one.

Being older won't help you, being calmer will help you. So don't rush. -- Hoary (talk) 09:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, I wouldn't bother trying to sort out the computer if it is so badly infected. That happened to one of my computers and what I did one day was I copied out all my files, restarted the computer with the Windows installation CD inside, then re-partitioned the hard drive - thus formatting it and deleting everything.

The disadvantage of this method is that you'll have to reinstall windows from the CD, and then you'll have to download things like sound card drivers your self (here's a good place). Believe me, setting up your computer again will take a VERY long time. And if you've forgotten to copy out one of your files... it's lost.

If you can sort your computer out with anti-virus software, I'd definitely do that, but if it's "overflowed with viruses", I'd say you got fat chance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.128.200 (talk) 10:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The first thing to do in this situation is to turn the computer off. This will stop the virus from spreading and causing more damage. Now, you'll want to rescue your important files, so get yourself a Linux live cd; download on another computer, burn to disk. Run the live CD on the infected computer and you should be able to copy your files to a USB stick or floppy disk. Note that Linux will not be effected by the virus as it will most likely be a Windows specific virus. Be careful only to copy your files and not any system files, as these could be infected with the virus and you will just be spreading it to the next computer. Once you've saved your files, you have two options; try to repair the computer or just reinstall Windows. Personally I'd reinstall, as it at most will take about an hour, and with XP it should have most of the drivers you'll need preinstalled. If you want to try and repair, Linux should have a copy of Clam AntiVirus, the anti-virus engine ClamWin uses; but if as you say the computer is totally infected, there will probably already be too much damage to bother trying to repair. 20I.170.20 (talk) 12:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer viruses don't "spread through the air"; you have to run them. Using a Windows-based recovery CD would be fine too as long as you didn't start launching applications from the hard disk. Contrariwise, if you have a macro virus in a Microsoft Word document (for example), using a Linux-based recovery CD to copy it isn't going to get rid of the virus. Like StuRat, I'm suspicious that your problem really is viruses, though. The only symptoms you mentioned are (a) can't access Control Panel, Task Manager, or My Computer and (b) the computer slows down when it tries to perform certain tasks, neither of which sounds like a virus problem to me. In fact both are more likely to be caused by antivirus software. People tend to blame every mysterious computer problem on viruses without considering the alternatives. Still, regardless of the problem's cause, copying your important files and reinstalling is likely to be the quickest and easiest way to fix it. -- BenRG (talk) 16:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you sure it's viruses that are the prob ? It could be other problems. Try a reboot, defrag, and then run free anti-spyware programs like AdAware and Spybot. StuRat (talk) 14:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

speed of data types

I'm wondering whether some data types can be used operated on by the computer faster than others. Because I couldn't find any information on the web (other than that 64-bit computers can operate 64 bit integers faster than 32-bit computers), I decided to write some C++ code as an experiment.

I am incredibly confused by the results. As expected, unsigned longs ran the fastest, but I was surprised that unsigned chars and unsigned shorts ran MUCH more slowly... slower even than 64 bit long longs, which were only slightly slower than longs! If the computer is only 32 bits, and an integer is 64 bits wide, wouldn't the computer have to do several calculations to carry bits over or something? Also, unsigned long x:8 bitfields sometimes ran faster than unsigned chars! Shouldn't the compiler have optimized all the chars then, or is it because I'm using Visual Studio Express edition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cnbn (talk • contribs) 09:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

You should expect optimal performance when dealing with the native word size of the machine, when accessing word-aligned data. How fast sub-accesses (accesses to packed arrays of things smaller than the word size) are depends on the native instructions available on a given architecture, and on which of those instructions a given compiler actually emits. Barring handy shortcut instructions (and perhaps even then) you'd expect byte access on a (say) 32 bit architecture to be slower (for data in cache), as to access (e.g.) the 3rd byte in a word the compiler has to generate instructions to shift the word down and AND off the other stuff. I mentioned cache above, and I guess your test was on data that would fit into the cache? If you're accessing so much data that it doesn't fit into the cache, then your timings will be dominated by cache latency (not by the few extra instructions that are needed to address some sizes) - so accessing 1Gb of uchar8s and 1Gb of uint32s should be much closer together than the ratio of the same on only 10Kb of the same. The best thing you can do, if you really want to understand what's going on, is to have your compiler emit assembly language too, and see the difference between the code it generates for the different data types. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:30, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Once you've understood this, take a look at how the compiler handles stuff like:

      struct {
        uchar8    c;
        uint32    i;
        uchar8    c2;
      } foo;

some architectures (like MIPS) will insist that i be on a word boundary, some will allow it to be misaligned (Intel), and some will allow it depending on a processor flag (SPARC, I think). Those architectures that do allow misaligned access essentially have to do the shift-and-mask thing themselves for you, and so are often slower than if you'd aligned things better. That's why compilers often have a bunch of flags that let you specify alignment and packing (things you didn't care about until right now), and why the C-programmer's favourite trick of casting a buffer of received bytes to a structure can be unportable or downright fatal. Again, looking at what the compiler emits can be very instructive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

A question about software bug reporting .

Bold textFirst i want to say that this is not a question of how to report a bug in wikipedia. My question is how to make a perfect software bug report including : bug report components,best way to avoide needless information within the report.I hope i get an answer as soon as possible for i need it so much,,thanks... —Preceding unsigned comment added by NightxKnightx87 (talk • contribs) 12:14, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It varies a bit depending on what you're reporting on; if its something with an open bug-reporting system (like Bugzilla) it's a good idea to see what other people are reporting. Different programs generate different kind of error codes or data dumps, and these are generally what someone wanting to fix a bug will need. You always have to say what version of the program you're running, and generally what related things (OS version, versions of any software that interacts with the buggy program) you were running. Say what you were trying to do, what you actually did, what you expected to happen, and what actually did happen. The "what you actually did" can be very important - in order for a bug to be fixed, it must be reproduceable. So bugs that say "I was using the program and it crashed" aren't much use; instead saying "I went to www.foo.com and clicked on the red box three times, and the system reported error code X123000 and hung. I've done this several times on two different windows computers and the same thing happens every time" is much much better. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

For how much do you think this domain is worth?

For how much do you think this domain www.bloggersday.com is worth? I want to know because I want to sell. 59.96.137.111 (talk) 14:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The standard answer is that something is worth the most that a buyer is willing to pay and the least a seller is willing to accept. OtherDave (talk) 01:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The fact is that since you didn't do anything except get lucky in registering it the odds are that nobody is going to want to pay you very much for it (and why should they?). How much is it worth? However much some sucker would be willing to pay for it. Even if I was dying to have a site named "bloggersday" for some reason it would be easy enough to do "bloggersdayonline" or something like that. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

What should i do?

i bought a system from a coy at a give a way price which has an administrator's password and i tried to remove it because the person that passworded the system is no more working there and nobody knows the password.

with my little knowledge, i went through so many ways with the CMD, and this was what i got after trying the steps:

NET USER [username [password | *] [options]] [/DOMAIN] username <password | *> /ADD [option] [/DOMAIN] username [/DELETE] [/DOMAIN]

i don't know what it means, and what am i suppose to do?

somebody assist cos i cant download any software without the administrator's password which is really making me mad

thanks.

Mb —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.73.189.210 (talk) 15:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth re-installing the operating system, since you don't have full access to the machine's administrative account. Nimur (talk) 15:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you're not afraid of command like, try ntpasswd. But since your computer was used by someone else, I recommend a fresh reinstall. --grawity 16:12, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Nimur and Grawity has the right idea here. Technically you can get into it. The problem is that used systems are nothing but trouble. Who knows what kind of viruses, spyware, and misconfigurations have happened? You should be able to use any XP cd with the serial on the sticker on the computer to reinstall it. --mboverload@ 20:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

TFT display reliability and energy usage

Are TFT displays more or less reliable than CRTs now? I heard a few years ago that somepixels would fail leaving black spots. Also do they use mor or less energy that CRT when in use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.204.221 (talk) 16:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

They are more commonly called LCD displays or TV's. Considering the billions of dollars of investment into the technology, this is the way the world has gone. CRT's are definitely old technology and in some places are literally being thrown away. As LCD's have thousands of hours of active life in them, by the time these hours are used up the next technology would be around anyway... anyone for holographic TV? The "black spot" problem was more prevalent in older models... I've seen this with my own eyes; my older Viewsonic had a few but my newer LG and Samsung don't have any. They definitely use less energy than CRT and in most cases less energy than plasma TV's. Newer LCD's are becoming even greener and using less energy. I can tell you from personal experience as well - LCD's are better for your eyes than CRT's especially when you're staring at one all day and from a close distance. Sandman30s (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

LCDs definitely use less power, but I'm skeptical that they will be as long-lasting as CRTs. I have 20 year old CRT TVs which have been in everyday usage and are still going strong. Based on the short length of warrantees on LCD TVs and early reports of failures on some, they seem less likely to last, to me. Also, I don't know if this applies to modern LCDs or not, but I've had LCD calculators, watches, and clocks ruined by exposure to cold if I left them out in the car during winter. I've also had an LCD laptop with random colors appearing on certain pixels. I'd be very interested in seeing a report on mean hours until failure for each technology. StuRat (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

My sons' 17" HP's which I bought in 2003 still show, via the monitor software, 18000 and 20000 hours of usage left. They are still going strong. I doubt very much if anyone would still want to watch a LCD 15 or 20 years from now, given the current rate of change of technology. With talk of 3D 360 degree holographic images popping up from watches and cellphones, I can see why. Besides, if LCD is still around in 20 years, they would probably be using paper-thin foldable material running at super-duper-ultra-HD or something. Sandman30s (talk) 13:14, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

CRTs lasted for a century, so I can imagine LCD technology lasting at least a few more decades. And, if I buy a $2000 TV, I would expect it to last for more than just a few years. StuRat (talk) 01:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Looking for two specific linux tux images

I am trying to find two linux tux images I have seen but I can't remember where from. One is Tux working an abacus with small tuxes as the beads, the other is tux holding up two small tuxes, one in each of his wings. I've been able to find a small version of one of these but I am looking for the originals. Thanks -- 209.30.197.76 (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Linux Counter. The other I found is holding only one tux Link- Abhishek (talk) 17:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! the linux counter logo is one i was thinking of. The other has tux holding mini tuxes like a waiter might carry trays. -- 209.30.197.76 (talk) 23:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Cheap webhosting

Dear all-knowing Refdeskers,

I recently bought myself a domain from a relatively rare TLD. For various reasons I bought it directly from the registering authority. I am now looking for a cheap webhost - I need some small space for a HTML page or two and email forwarding. Now, do anyone have any tips for cheap and reliable providers? By "cheap" I mean, perhaps, less than $40 for the first year including setup costs etc. I have the domain but nothing else - all I have at the domain register interface is the possibility to enter the addresses of name servers. I am located in Europe but the hoster could be anywhere as long as the interface is English. Thanks a lot! Jørgen (talk) 19:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

NearlyFreeSpeech.net is by far the best host I have ever used. For users like you, the cost each year will be negligible. But, you could use a free host - and by free I a mean absolutely free. I currently use 000webhost.com - which would be perfect for your needs, but will probably be less reliable if you need it constantly than a paid host. However, I use them for my email at the moment and I couldn't ask for a better job. (I hope NPOV doesnt apply here ;) - Sorf^ane 19:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Personal opinions are fine as long as everyone understands that we are not liable for anything. --mboverload@ 20:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless it's legal or medical advice, in which case your personal opinions are still not postable. Nimur (talk) 05:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, I'll look into those (looked at NFS some time ago, in fact), feel free to add more opinions, neutral or not... :-) Jørgen (talk) 06:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Vacation videos - what format to use?

Dear all-knowing Refdeskers,

some time ago I bought a regular home-use DV camera, which records to Mini-DV tapes. Now I want to spend some time, but preferably not much (I know that can be hard) editing this video. My main question is: what is the optimal format for storage of edited videos? I really hate throwing away information, but realize that storing the video in the same format as on the DV tapes will really be a drain on HD space. Let's say I want DVD-grade quality - what compression/codec/resolution should I use? Also, I would really appreciate tips on free / win32-bundled video editing software. I looked at Microsoft Movie Maker and perhaps it does actually fulfill my needs - except that it seemed rather restrictive on formats for the saved videos, which relates to my previous question. Can that be adjusted somehow? Thanks a lot! Jørgen (talk) 19:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I've always used DivX for compressing all my videos, and it's always compressed really well and kept very good quality. (http://www.divx.com/) Regarding editing, I've never had a problem with WMM for my basic editing needs, and I've always liked it becuase it lets me edit my DivXs, but I'm sure other users will have better ideas ;) - Sorf^ane 20:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Keep the video in the native codec for editing. For the finalized video I think H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a pretty awesome, standard one. I personally recommend that one. However, I do not know how widespread it is implemented. --mboverload@ 20:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Glancing at the DV article, I didn't find any resolution information - any suggestions on the resolution I should use on the final video? And is it straigtforward to customize resolution/codec for the final product in Windows Movie Maker? Jørgen (talk) 06:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

You should not care about any of this in the current stage. You want as high quality as possible, and that means keeping it in its original format until the final recompression. All video compression in common use are lossy, so you want to recompress as little as possible. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:24, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

My (signal) strength is waning...

Is there a walk-in store where I can buy the Channel Master CM4228 antenna in the Detroit area ? StuRat (talk) 19:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Radio Shack? Useight (talk) 20:39, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Radio Shack typically prides itself on selling overpriced, foreign-made junk, so I doubt if they would carry a quality, reasonably priced, American-made antenna like this. StuRat (talk) 20:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Hey, hey, hey. No bashing Radio Shack. Whenever you need some weird little converter to plug some electronic thing into another, they have it. I've never been disappointed. Also, their return policy is amazing. Everything is returnable, even if it's open, with no restocking fee. The higher price is worth the excellent service. Sure beats Best Buy and its inferior goods. Useight (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps, but they sell some rather pathetic TV antennas, like those from Terk. StuRat (talk) 02:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

At participating Ace and Tru Value hardware stores. --LarryMac | Talk 21:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

That list is of stores carrying some Channel Master products. While Ace's website lists some CM products, they don't list the CM4228 antenna. The True Value website seems quite useless, it doesn't list anything related to antennas at all. StuRat (talk) 21:18, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows vs. Puppy Linux

The amazing thing about Linux in general is not only that it works better, but in some cases it is much smaller than Windows. Puppy Linux, for example, in its full-fledged version, only needs less than 200 MB. What does Windows have in all its GBs for more or less the same functionality ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 19:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think my Vista install is like 16 GB. Could be wrong. Whats in there? Programmers and people who have read Windows Internals by Mark Russivich should be able to help. --mboverload@ 20:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I think Microsoft (and a lot of other software companies) have taken the position that hard drives are so big now that people can afford to devote a few gigabytes to the OS and hundreds of megabytes on each installed application. And for most users that's true—I think your typical laptop/desktop hard drive is mostly empty these days. It has little to do with Windows internals; it's mostly rarely-used user-level stuff. For example, XP has some kind of "welcome to XP" multimedia thingy which remains permanently on your hard drive (just in case you add a new user to the machine some day and they want to see it). XP keeps a permanent backup of lots of system files for the System File Protection feature, which effectively doubles the space those files take. When you install a security update, the old versions of the changed files are kept in case you need to undo the change. Same with service packs. Many/most machines that ship with Windows also include the raw contents of the install CD on the hard drive so that you can install new drivers, language support etc. without needing a physical Windows install CD. Lots of other applications like to put their files in the Windows folder, which might lead you to count them as part of the OS. You may have a paging file and a hibernation file taking up a few gigabytes each. The System Restore feature will happily use as much space as you give it.

Another reason for bloat is increasing use of general-purpose libraries and increasing use of static linking. General-purpose libraries are less buggy, and static linking avoids DLL hell. They reduce development time and support costs. But it does mean that every application that uses XML is likely to have its own copy of an XML library, and that library is likely to have its own copy of hundreds of kilobytes of Unicode traits tables and Shift-JIS and Big5 conversion tables and so on, even if you only ever use ASCII. And if the application comes with several different executable files or DLLs, each one may have its own copy of the library.

Also, software tends to have fewer installation options now. Once upon a time you had a lot of control over which parts of Windows to install, but XP has only a few token options which hardly affect the installed size at all. Fewer combinations to consider means easier development and support. Also also, Puppy uses aggressive compression to get the disk image size down. Windows has nothing similar, and that kind of compression doesn't really work anyway for a system that's being incrementally updated with new software and service packs.

Looking back on these I notice that most of them have to do with easing customer support. Keeping as much as possible on the hard drive, in as many copies as possible, means no hunting for CDs and fewer cases of critical files being lost or damaged, and Joe User has no other use for the extra space. I think that's the direction the whole industry is moving, not just Microsoft. And I think Linux is moving that way too. -- BenRG (talk) 21:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that -- just to pick one example -- Windows comes with DirectX, which is a collection of software that makes it easy for games (and other multimedia applications) to use numerous different types of graphics and sound hardware without the programmers having to include separate support for every single graphics card out there in the multimedia application in question. Considering the wide variety of hardware manufacturers and products, that's not only an obvious time and money saver for the developers, but also something that makes life a lot easier for the consumer. I mean, I'm sure Windows could be a lot smaller than it is if Microsoft made that a higher priority, but it's not as if the list of features in Windows Vista is similar to that in Puppy Linux. They just aren't designed for the same purpose. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There IS OpenGL you know, DirectX is not the only technology out there. Puppy Linux is designed for compactness, whereas Windows is not. Normal Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, installs to a similar size to Windows (I have 10GB for each), but it contains a full office suite, graphics editing tool, and a lot others. I guess dynamic linking does save a lot of space. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but DirectX includes support for a lot of things other than just graphics. And yes, there are absolutely alternatives to them, but there's a reason why Puppy Linux (as opposed to some other Linux distribution) doesn't include them. I'm not saying that Windows Vista couldn't possibly be any smaller. Or faster, or better, or any such thing. I'm just saying that comparing it to Puppy Linux is a little like saying that this axe sure is better than this chainsaw, because it's not as heavy. It's getting pretty deep into that apples and oranges territory. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 09:55, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Restoring old version of Microsoft Word doc

I accidentally changed, saved, and then closed a Word doc. Can I get back the earlier version ? There's no Undo option since I already did a save. StuRat (talk) 21:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you can't. The only thing that might help is if you had backed up the old version of the file somewhere.  ARTYOM  00:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a faint possibility that you may find something useful in a Word temp file. This would likely be in the same directory as the document itself. (Not a great hope, just an outside chance that in opening the temp file you'd find something salvageable.) OtherDave (talk) 01:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Just agreeing with the others- Word actually deletes content (unlike Excel). --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Use a recovery program and search for files that begin with ~. One of those might be your Word document. Its probably too late by now. --mboverload@ 03:38, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Try to leave the computer alone and do research on the problem on another PC. We don't want to overwrite the area of the hard drive that contains the file we want to recover.

Download this program on another PC and put it on a disc:

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

On the PC that has the file, start in the program "Windows Explorer." (Start - All Programs - Accessories - Windows Explorer)

Delete any files you know you don't need or can easily get back. This gives us some disc space to put the utility on. The more files and the bigger - the better the odds. Videos are great for getting disc space back.

Then load the undelete program. If you can, load it on a drive other than the drive that contains the file you want to recover (probably C).

You just may get lucky and be able to recover the file - that is if the area of the hard drive where the file was has not been overwritten with other files - including: your web page cache that grows with every page you visit (including this one), and the undelete program you install. How lucky you are depends on a lot of things (mostly hard drive size and file fragmentation). Some of it is luck too, but deleting some files first improves your odds.

Even if it is too late to get the file back, free undelete is a great program to already have installed if you ever need it in the future. Hope it helps.

--Wonderley (talk) 07:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the file wasn't deleted, it was overwritten with new content. Would any of this work for such a case ? StuRat (talk) 11:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I think so. I'm pretty sure that when you resave a file it: Saves the file under a temp name. Deletes the original. Renames the temp file.--Wonderley (talk) 22:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The temp file(s) was/were deleted, so they'd need to try to find that file.--droptone (talk) 12:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)