One of the best things about Office programs (and just about any other application, for that matter) is that when I close a file without saving, I get prompted with a familiar message:

It’s simple, I know, but I can’t tell you how many times this has saved my bacon. I also can’t tell you how many times I have accidentally clicked Don’t Save and then have had to recreate content. I don’t know why I do this, however, I also don’t think I’m alone.

In response, Word 2010 now comes with an improved autosave feature. Here’s how it works:

       1.  You forget to save. 

       2.  You the document back up.

       3.  Go to File | Info | Versions and notice the “unsaved” version is still available.

          4.  Click on the version and notice that you will have the option to compare and/or restore to the previously saved version.

A few things to note about this feature:

•   Your document only gets saved behind the scenes every 5 minutes, but you can adjust this time
•   This copy of the document is only kept until you choose to save new changes or for 4 days
•   The file gets saved in the following location:
  •  Windows 7/Vista: C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles
  •  Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\User_Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\UnsavedFiles
•   This applies to Word 2010, Excel 2010 and PowerPoint 2010