How can I retreive a file that I mistakenly saved to a temp file?

I’m not sure how you could save it as a temp file. Have you tried checking the recently opened files. I believe it is under File in Word.

yes I did that already : (

believe me i wish i knew what i did wrong!

By temp file, do you mean:
Saving to a temporary location, or saving it as a special file type?

Often times, Word will create files that are backups of unsaved files.
If you think it is a temporary location, try looking in the temp folders.

I hate to say it, but it seems as though your file was just not saved; in this case, you are sort of SOL. Without some sort of backup.

If you know the day and time of day you were working on it, give this a shot:

1. Do a general document search on documents modified in the last week
2. Sort the results by Date Modified or Date Created, whichever is more useful
3. Scroll to the approximate time that you created it in the list.

Also, you might try searching your hard drive by “text string,” and include some of the text in the file.

Typically, if you opened a file via email or something it would open it in a temp location then prompt you to save it in that same temp location. The windows temp files regularly clear themselves out but you might check the following locations:

C:\temp
C:\Windows\temp
C:\documents and settings\%username%\local settings\temp

You could also redo the search by searching for documents of .doc extension. Make sure you include ‘system files’ in the search options because I believe the temp file is considered a system file. After searching arrange them by ‘modified’ and look back to last week.

You might try retracing your steps. What caused you to save it in a temp location? Was it indeed because you opened a file from an email and altered it, then saved it? If you do that again, what file does it put you in to?