windows file explorer question

Probably a simple question for the computer literate please...

Every so often when I go into my file explorer to open something I have saved, I find the file missing and these three 'files' in its place.

Where has the original file gone and is it recoverable from the remains ?

What causes this to happen please ? I've had it happen many times over the years.

Gerry

A few details about your operating system and computer may help slightly

In the good old days, everything to do with an object was stored in a single file with a complex internal structure. So, in addition to the text typed in by the author, a Word document would also contain a mass of housekeeping like fonts, pictures, pagination, tabulation, orientation, emboldening, kerning, language, macros, and much, much more.

Other objects like photographs, video, audio, spreadsheets, power point, CAD, and executables all have different structures, also complicated. Working with such files is a seriously difficult programming problem: they have to be parsed, assembled in memory correctly, and the data and structures both updated and written back without making any mistakes. Versions make life even more complicated.

Computer scientists and developers soon started to simplify the problem by breaking complex objects down, typically by storing them in multiple files, each of them specialising in one part of the structure. Rather than being encoded into a single complicated file, the object is a delivered as a container full of simpler files, which are easier for a programmer to decode. The container can be a folder (aka directory), or a file format designed as a container of other files. zip, epub, tar etc.

Gerry's 'file' is actually a folder containing three files that together describe a Microsoft Office document. I think they are all 'meta data', that is data about data, rather than the content itself. XML is a 'Markup Language' used to describe data and data structures. I guess 'colorschememapping' contains the rules used to colour text, foreground, background etc, whilst 'filelist' identifies the files containing whatever the user typed in. Could be one or many files in a container, depending on the application. Webpages are usually built from many files, whilst a letter is only one. XML files are human readable and can be opened safely. 'themedata' looks like meta-data too, but probably not human readable because it's identified as a 'Microsoft Office' type.

Stuff like this is produced by application software following a specification set by the developer. They're meaningful to programmers with a copy of the manual. The container may be the end-product or only an intermediate step, that is a folder of files produced by one program that will be translated later by another program into something else. For example, a web editor creating a layout, that something else turns into HTML, CSS or whatever in another stage.

Most ebooks are multiple files in a container.

Wouldn't worry about it: an application has output a folder containing a three files rather than stuffing the same information into a single file.

Clear as mud I expect!

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 22/06/2023 14:24:20

Hi, Gerry - sent you a PM - this site won't let me post an answer for some reason - keeps telling me to paste (what?) using the paste from Word button

Thanks all for taking time to comment but as SOD put it, its still as clear as mud, at least to me ! In the most recent occasion that this issue occurred (that prompted me to make this post) it was with a pdf. I think, everything I read refers to word documents.

None of the '3 files' is ever readable to me so I cant work back and work out what caused this to occur. There must be some special conditions at play as this isn't the norm when I save files. Let me see if I can find the conditions that reproduce the fault and I will come back for more help.

Gerry

Right click and choose "open with - Notepad. This will be text only and harmless, though perhaps of limited use. Generally though, it does help work out what is going on. However, to get this to work on all or most files you may need to enable some options in folder options/view.

Gerry, what's missing for me is knowing what program you were using when you saved the file(s). I don't see how your questions can be answered without that information.

I think what's happening is Windows has lost the file association. When a file is opened with Explorer, the file extension is used to identify whatever program will work with it. So if the extension is .TXT, Explorer usually launches Notepad. As almost every computer is set up differently, File Associations can be added, changed and removed. Normally by installers, also manually. Several ways File Associations can be lost. Installing and uninstalling applications, malware, malfunction or owner messing with the Registry, and even Alpha Particles!

If Explorer doesn't have an association, it may default to a general purpose action such as 'show what's inside' rather than the expected 'launch the application'. Sounds like your problem. Explorer doesn't know what to launch, but its smart enough to name what's inside.

In Explorer, try Right-Clicking on the file. Should get a menu with an Open option that lists Applications, one of which can be selected manually. For example, if the file is a PDF, a PDF reader such as Adobe, Foxit, Word, OpenOffice etc. Look for the name of the application that created the file in the first place.

To restore automatic recognition : How to set a File Association.

Dave

Hi Gerry, quite a while ago now, but I had a time when I had saved things, but when I went to look for them in the place where I thought I'd saved them, they were nowhere obvious to be found. I can't remember how I discovered it, but it turned out that everything was defaulting to be saved in OneDrive, no idea why that happened, and I can't remember what I did to stop it happening, but I did cure the problem.

Regards Nick.

I installed a rather useful search program that is especially useful for finding files that don't appear where I thought they should be. It's called Everthing. Its free and can be downloaded from HERE

Unlike the File Manager search facility, it's just about instant - no waiting for results at all. Give it a try, you will be surprised at how efficient it is.

is your file system set to view all files, system files and hidden files-?. Save a file in question to a USB stick and see what happens.

Gerry: Have you tried the Everthing program I suggested? If your file is anywhere, Everything will find it for you. It's small, free, and very fast. What is there to lose?