Every so often I get a temporary (.tmp) Word Work File showing up on the desktop which cannot be dumped in the Trash or otherwise deleted — in fact, the message which pops up when I try to drag it to the Trash states explicitly that the file cannot be moved to the Trash because it cannot be deleted.

Weird.

Even closing Word and relaunching it doesn't get rid of the so-called .tmp file. Restarting the iMac does seem to do the job, but I'd rather have a less drastic solution.

I can't even find where such things are stored so that I might dump the entire temp file for Word.

Restarting the iMac does seem to do the job, but I'd rather have a less drastic solution.

Any suggestions?

FYI: I'm running Office for Mac 2011, updated to version 14.2.3.

Really?! No one has a clue? That's a first for assembled FTMers.

Take a look at this thread on Microsoft Answers

That wouldn't seem to apply.

you mentioned closing and relaunching Word, what about quitting and trying to delete the file before relaunching?

Tried that and several other versions with the same result ... no luck moving or getting rid of the .tmp file (document).

try repairing the hdd with diskutility

see what terminal says when you try to rm the file

file may be open/in use. use lsof -nP to check to see if something has the file open.

can also try stat'ing the file to see if something informative shows up there

Thanks, but I understood absolutely none of your suggestions other than the first (which I can't figure out how to do since it isn't an option under Disk Utility, at least not on my iMac).

Put differently: I don't have any idea how to troubleshoot anything on other than a trivial level, and Pogue's Missing Manual doesn't help in that regard either.

Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities). Type rm and leave a space. Drag the file into the Terminal window; the path to it will appear. Now, press Return. Does the file disappear or does Terminal give you a message of some sort? What's the message?

FYI, rm is Unix for remove.

I believe that you've got to boot into your recovery partition to run Disk Utility.

Edit: i.e. "Repair Disk"

This Google search reveals several things...

1. You are far from the only person having problems deleting Microsoft Office (Word, Outlook etc.) .TMP or work files
2. A lot has been written about how to delete these files but no one has found or at least suggested anything resembling a permanent "fix"
3. The problem has been around since long before Office 2011 and the offending code has apparently been carried over from release to release.
4. The problem is most likely embedded deep in the Microsoft Office code and a permanent fix will be up to Microsoft and not the user.

Hopefully one or more of those many articles/posts will gave you enough understandable information to enable you to "do it yourself" when the problem recurs and it will recur.

Jon: Part of the problem is that one can't drag/move the offending file anywhere. It sits frozen on the desktop.

joemikeb: That provides the answer, namely that the only way to get rid of the offending file is to restart. Ergo no less drastic way to deal with the issue. {sigh} Time to move on.

I wonder if you boot in to Safe Boot mode, and then try deleting the offending file from there, that would put things to right.

It seems (to me) that should work. But does it?

What would be the point, Harv, when a simple restart clears the file?

You're right, Artie.

No doubt the ravages of time and tide caused me to miss the part about a simple restart fixing the problem.

Actually, dragging it into the Terminal window doesn't move it. That's just a shortcut for telling Terminal the path to the file (you could type it, of course, but this procedure obviates making a typo). Have you actually tried it?

No ... it can't be moved. If I try to drag and drop it, nothing is achieved, nothing happens, it stays stuck; not even a 'ghost' version of it moves. It's as though it's part of the background desktop picture. (Try moving a star in the galaxy.)
And because I've long since rebooted and gotten rid of it (at least this last one), I can't try any manipulations other than those already described.

There in a nutshell is one of the reasons why, other than in the Parallels Desktop environment, I no longer have any Microsoft code on my Macs. The only reason I have Parallels Desktop is to test web sites in Explorer.

I have not found a perfect replacement for Word but Mellel, NeoOffice, and Nisus Writer Pro, and Pages all do a decent job of importing and exporting .doc and .docx files.

I use Onyx to delete naughty things that won't go away. It has a lot of goodies, like allowing you to resetting the links connecting files to programs, clearing mega-logs and caches, letting you set a custom log-in picture and message and Force Delete Trash. You get scary warnings before you do anything incredibly stupid but Ganbustein still got me out of a sticky place when I force deleted something that was on an external drive.

The only other thing I can think of is trying to designate through Word where it should keep the work files, then you don't have to see them at least. Or reinstall Word.

Could how TM flags files under Lion as not temp be part of the issue? See Ganbustein's post under Changing Terminal Name string. A long shot...