A Miraculous System Restore 3/22/06

Somehow I managed to lose my final project this afternoon while switching between my two user accounts. The file loss was most likely due to user error, but it makes me happy to blame MSWord. My office mate is a pretty experienced word user, so when he looked completely perplexed over the missing autorecovery files, and C: drive searches on *.tmp and *.doc failed to find my file, I had to confess that I had deleted them. Yes, word politley asked me if I would like to restore my file, and I said "Thank you very much, but I have all the files I need". As a last ditch effort, I remembered my Dad's system restore trick. In googling the steps however, I discovered a not-so-promising article about how system restore does not apply to word documents. I pretended that I didn't see this article, or thought that perhaps my computer was *special*, and went for the system restore anyway. Two nerve-wracking hours later my computer finished the restore process, and Voila! there was my file! When I opened word, it was listed in the autorecover toolbar. So, just in case anyone else owns a *special* computer, or is need of recovering from damaged system files, here's how to auto restore in Windows XP:

Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Restore. System Restore starts.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q306084

Now if only there was a system forward to produce the final draft...