Bad MS Office 2016 bug

[AVmcclint]

(I tried posting this in the Macadmins microsoft-office Slack channel, but it tells me I'm offline and refuses to let me change it to "active". it just says "reconnecting" and never connects. Hopefully this information will find its way to someone who can do something with it.)

I've discovered a dangerous bug in Office 2016 that has existed for at least several versions. Open Excel (or Word), create a file with some data in it, Save to the desktop. Quit the app. Move the file to the trash (but don't empty it yet). Relaunch Excel (or Word) and click on the File Menu>OpenRecent>The file you created a minute ago and is now sitting in the trash. The file opens! And you are able to make changes and save the changes! I've had users lose important files because they thought they were still working on the files in their ~/Documents folder because they ONLY opened them via the Open Recents menu and they almost never empty the Trash... until they do.

If you try to open the file directly by double clicking the icon in the Trash, the OS will tell you it can't be opened because it's in the Trash - as expected.

[bvrooman]

This is the behavior I would expect from most applications (and I just confirmed it with a couple of random apps on my machine). The Trash is a collection of several folders (~/.Trash, /.Trashes, etc.); it's the Finder that makes it into something special by displaying all of the directories at once in the same window, and then preventing the opening of files directly from that window.

Perhaps it would be a feature request for Office apps to handle recent files inside one of the Trash directories in some special way (refuse to open them, open them but complain about it, etc.), but this seems more like a user/training issue.

On a side note, what is the deal with users' obsessive storing of files/emails in the absolute worst location that you could use to store important stuff? :)

[AVmcclint]

Ya know... It never occurred to me to test it with other apps. You are absolutely right. Even TextWrangler SHOWS the path in Open Recent as ~/Desktop, it still opens it in the trash and permits saving changes! This is something I never EVER use because I know the inherent danger of using any "Open Recent items" menu.

The main user this affected here did keep his file on the desktop but he thought he synced it to the server or some other safe location. Then he cleared his desktop by putting everything in the trash - but didn't empty. For weeks he's been using the Open Recent menu to keep making changes to what he THOUGHT was saved elsewhere. Then being the dutiful computer user he is, he emptied the trash.... then discovered that Excel could no longer find the file. I wish there was a way to completely disable the Recents menu in any and all apps!

A funnier tech support story:
I used to be a tech support rep at AOL 20 years ago and one day I was helping a user install the AOL software on his Mac but he kept getting "not enough disk space" errors. I helped him delete the 15 duplicate copies of the AOL software and then had him empty the trash. He was able to install the software just fine after that. Then right before the call ended he asked, "Where are all my files??" I asked, "What do you mean" He said, "All my important files, my letters to and from my parents and family, and tax returns etc... I had them in the trash can and now they're gone." After a few seconds pause I slowly asked him, "You keep your super important files in the trash?" He proudly stated, "Yes" So I said it again, but this time more slowly and more pronounced, "You. keep. your. super. important. files. in. the. TRASH?" After a few moments of silence, I can hear the gears in his head churning and he says, "oooohhhhhh" Then I asked him, "where do you put files you want to delete?" He very proudly announced, "I have a folder on my desktop called 'garbage'" and I could hear him smiling about how clever he thought that was. The call kinda went downhill from there.

[AVmcclint]

duplicate

[iMatthewCM]

@AVmcclint That story made me cringe. That is exceptionally discouraging :P I had a similar experience when I worked for Geek Squad.