mystery file appears on my desktop

[Mike M.]

A mystery file appears on my desktop every time I perform
the following actions:

open Outlook Express (version 6.00.2800.1123)
open Address Book (version 6.00.2800.1123
add, change or delete a contact in Address Book
close out Outlook Express
close out Address Book

The file name is simply the tilde (~) character with no
extension. I've opened it with notepad and it mostly
consists of characters I can't read (control or format
characters I guess). It also includes all the contact
names that were in my Address Book so I suspect that it's
some kind of backup file or memory dump.

Does anyone have any ideas about this? I have deleted it
without suffering any ill effects so it doesn't seem to
be anything serious, just annoying.

Thanks,

Mike

Dell Dimension 8200
Windows XP Home Edition, SP1
P4 1.7MHz
512 meg rd ram
Maxtor 80 gig 7200 spin hd
G-Force 3 TI 200 video

[Kelly]

Hi Mike,

The "Mysterious Tilde File" usually appears just after you close
OE but only if you made any change to Address Book during this OE
session...but not always.

It's usually found on Desktop but on occasion appears at C:\ . Rename it
~.wab and you'll see it's an exact copy of Address Book.

It first appeared in November '02 with 331923/Cumulative Update
for OE6-SP1 which was only available via manual download and with
the more recent 330994/April '03 Cumulative Patch for OE,
available via Windows Update.

The MS-OE team are currently aware of the issue and are working on it.

--
All the Best,
Kelly

MS-MVP Win98/XP
[AE-Windows® XP]

Troubleshooting Windows XP
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Mike M. wrote:
> A mystery file appears on my desktop every time I perform
> the following actions:
>
> open Outlook Express (version 6.00.2800.1123)
> open Address Book (version 6.00.2800.1123
> add, change or delete a contact in Address Book
> close out Outlook Express
> close out Address Book
>
> The file name is simply the tilde (~) character with no
> extension. I've opened it with notepad and it mostly
> consists of characters I can't read (control or format
> characters I guess). It also includes all the contact
> names that were in my Address Book so I suspect that it's
> some kind of backup file or memory dump.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas about this? I have deleted it
> without suffering any ill effects so it doesn't seem to
> be anything serious, just annoying.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike
>
> Dell Dimension 8200
> Windows XP Home Edition, SP1
> P4 1.7MHz
> 512 meg rd ram
> Maxtor 80 gig 7200 spin hd
> G-Force 3 TI 200 video