random named folders appearing in my docs

Greetings,

Over the last few weeks ive been having reports from users of randomly named empty folders appearing in their my documents folders.

The folders are named with just random letters and numbers no more than 8 characters long. They are not as far as i can tell folders created by windows updates. They are much longer names.

At first i thought virus, however i have scanned the users pc and the storage box where the documents are redirected to and found nothing.

Clients run XPsp3 with latest updates.

Any help would be appreciated.
James

This now seems to be happening when microsoft word documents are accessed/saved.

Any ideas? Is this happening to anyone else?

Image attatched.

Have you looked at those created them... And the time etc maybe help narrow it down for you!

ive actually watched it happen when a user saved a word document... however, the user didnt actualy create the folder

I've seen a similar glitch recently on two seperate Windows servers. If you click to highlight the folder, does the folder name change to something else?

No it doesnt. I have looked inside the folder and there is always another empty folder inside with a different random name.

However, i have just noticed in one of these folders is one called "offline" which contains 3 files. 0x00000001_R 0x00000001_R and HashFile.dat

Which version of word are you using?

Might be worth checking that your save as options are as in my picture (for 2003)

Hi Dom, we're using office 2003 sp3 at the moment. Have checked the options and they are identical to your screenshot.

Silly normal comment but make sure you have all the updates on the word, Although not something i've ran into before although most of the site i work at is using open office now.

Yep have updated to most recent updates, our network has a wsus which pushes them out. Im scratching my head as to what is still causing word to create these folders as i havent made any changes to default settings.

Was this ever resolved? As I now have the same problem!

hey jack0w...

No im afraid this wasnt resolved. Im still fighting this daily. Some users who havent check their documents folder have hundreds of these folders..

Im convinced its something to do with office and mandatory profiles as i dont get these in my documents and have my own user profile with different settings.

Glad someone else is seeing what i see.

Any ideas?

Interesting that you're using mandatory profiles as well, maybe this has some bearing on it..

I was wondering if that was the case but i started with a completely new mandatory profile in the summer rebuild and im still getting the same problem...

Any suggestions? Im still banging my head against this one, one of my users has 300 folders theyve been holding onto thinking theyre important lol..

Im certain it is office but not sure what i can do about it.