Windows – Where does Internet Explorer “save” downloaded files that are merely “opened”

internet explorermicrosoft wordwindows xp

My mom downloaded a Word document from an e-mail attachment by clicking on "Open" in the Internet Explorer 7 dialog, instead of "Save". She proceeded to make a lot of changes, after which she saved the document and closed Word, thinking she just updated the e-mail attachment.

Today she found out that that is not actually what happens and asked me to retrieve the file she made all the changes to. It seems most likely to me that if it still exists, it must be in some (probably temporary) directory that IE downloads these files to. But I can't find it. Does anyone know where these files get (temporarily) stored?

My mom is using Windows XP, Internet Explorer 7 and Word 2007 if that helps. Thanks!

Best Answer

I think it should be in: C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Temporary Internet Files\IE_VERSION then one of the bunch of random names, but I'm on Windows 7 so I can't verify that.

EDIT: The easiest way would be you go to Word and pick the Office Button go over Open and to the right, pick it there then just pick Save As. It'll show in it's current directory, and you can just save it somewhere else then and there.

Related Question