# Excel creating .tmp files on network shares



## ExchangeRanger (Nov 9, 2011)

This was previously posted by another user with no resolution, does anyone have any ideas as it is still happening to other people:

I am running into a very odd problem with Excel 2003 and the creation of .tmp files. I am posting this on the Office support forum, but I am not entirely convinced this is an Office problem.

The workstations having this issue are running Windows 7 and have Office 2003. This is a company environment so the files are stored on a server that is running Server 2003. Our environment has a mix of users using both Office 2003 and 2007. Machines that are running Office 2003 SP3 and also have the compatibility pack SP2 to open Office 2007 files. When a user with Excel 2003 opens a .xlsx file from a network drive and saves it a .TMP file is created. If I save a file called test.xlsx it creates a file called test.xlsx~RF35148a.TMP. When Excel is closed, the file does not disappear so it is filling up some folders with these .TMP files. I also noticed that this does not happen with Word or PowerPoint files. I logged onto the machine as a user and as an admin to confirm it isn't a permissions issue.

I looked into this issue online for a while and most solutions involved disabling or changing the settings of the anti-virus software on the machine. All of our machines are running Symantec Endpoint Protection. I disabled the anti-virus on both the server and the workstation and that did not solve the problem. I did some more testing and noticed that the problem doesn't happen if the .xlsx files are saved on the local machine. This led me to believe that it was a setting on the file server causing this. I dug a little deeper and tested on our Citrix environment for remote users. Our Citrix environment has Office 2003 and is running Server 2008. I did the same process of opening a .xlsx file and saving it and, to my surprise, it did not create a .TMP file. So the problem seems to exist on the Windows 7 workstations that are opening these .xlsx files that are on our file server.

After this I ran out of troubleshooting ideas. I am not sure if this is still an Excel issue, a setting on the file server, or a setting on the workstation that is causing this.

If anyone has any ideas of what would be causing this, or if you have any suggestions of where I could post this question for an answer, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. 

The variables are: 
Win 7 is being used
Office 2003 with 2007 file conversion is being used
It only happens to 2007 Excel files, .xls works fine 
It only happens on UNC paths or mapped drives, local is fine

Please advise.


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## Wand3r3r (Sep 17, 2010)

users have delete rights to the folders them tmp files stay in?

any difference if you use office 2003 WITHOUT the compatibility pack [which is what you meant by 2007 conversion]


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## ExchangeRanger (Nov 9, 2011)

Another thing to add to this is, it does not happen when opening and saving from a UNC path on another Win 7 machine. It is when saving to a UNC path or a mapped drive on a windows 2003 server or 2003SBS server


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## ExchangeRanger (Nov 9, 2011)

Thanks for the reply Wand3r3r, yes the compatibility pack. You can open and save normal Excel 2003 files from the UNC path or share just fine without the temp files and users can delete the files...but most users won't remember to do that. The .tmp file is the same size as the original.


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## Fredo74 (Nov 23, 2011)

Hi,
I experience the same issue. I have made all Windows' and Office's updates.
The tmp file is not deleted.
I tried from another computer that running Win XP SP3, Office 2003 and the compatibility pack and all work good.
It seems this issue apears only this Win 7.


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