Microsoft has warned users about a new issue that may cause Word to delete some documents instead of saving them.
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Word for Windows is one of the most popular word processing programs offered by Microsoft. With a variety of editing, formatting, and collaboration tools, Word enables users to create, edit, and share documents with ease. It also supports a range of file types, making it versatile enough for both professional and personal use. Thanks to regular updates and improvements, Word remains a go-to choice for users worldwide.
As explains , this bug only affects users of Word for Microsoft 365 version 2409, build 18025.20104. Additionally, this issue only occurs when users close Word after editing and are prompted to save it. After saving their changes in this way, the file may disappear.
On affected systems , the issue causes Word to delete locally stored documents after saving if the file names include the # symbol or have an uppercase file extension , such as .DOCX or .RTF .
The company confirmed the issue after widespread reports from users complaining that Microsoft Word started deleting some of their saved documents.
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Microsoft's Word team is investigating the issue. Until a fix is available, users can take several steps to resolve the issue, including checking the Recycle Bin, as the deleted file can be recovered from there. They can also manually save their documents before attempting to close Word.
Additionally, those affected by the bug that deletes documents can enable the “Do not show Backstage when opening or saving files with keyboard shortcuts” setting from File > Options > Save.
Another temporary fix is to roll back to the previous version until a patch is released by opening a new Command Prompt window with administrative privileges from the Windows search box , pasting the following commands, and pressing Enter after each one:
cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=17928.20156
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Last month, the company fixed another known issue that affected Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook, Word, Excel, and OneNote and caused an error when typing or spell-checking text.
Source: bleepingcomputer
