Self-changing of MS Word file names to temporary ~WRD ones on my Mac mini running macOS Sequoia.

Hello. I just finished with Dakota from Apple Support after being directed there by M$ Support following ineffective troubleshooting. You don't understand and I won't use your attitude to drive that home. The problem didn't start with me, this OS, or this version of Word; see, e.g., MS Word will not save word .docx document… - Apple Community I have used Word for years professionally. I recently found that when I open a Word file, edit it, and then save it the name ILLEGALLY changes; no one has a right to change my file names without my consent which I do not give. One such name witnessed by Apple Support was changed to .~WRD0000 and, yes, the file name starts with a period. I just during this conversation changed the same file and it was illegally named .~WRD4062, I go to do a "save" and it actually saved it unlike during my screenshare with Apple Support, and the change is reflected in the legally named file. So, the problem is intermittent. This morning the change were not saved to the legally named file thus pushing me over the edge and during the screen share with Apple Support we saw that it would not save without a prompt and mentioned something about another (unspecified) application using the same file. I am going to try again with M$ Support but expect that I will have to hire someone to rule out an infection and then support a damages claim.

The problem continues and if Apple doesn't fix it today I'm hiring a consultant and will punish everyone causing this situation. I will not accept "save as" as my remedy for the unlawful name changes of my files nor with the unlawful disappearance of files. I exhausted troubleshooting today with Microsoft and told to bring this back to Apple. I'm trying to find out how to reach Apple support.

PS: Do you understand that the file name showing at the top of the document shows the temp name not the file name and that obviously that is illegal? Apple Support was surprised to see that and you should be too; you know that's not supposed to happen.

I had an extraordinary chat with another Microsoft agent and this time I think that we may well have resolved the problem. There appears to be no fault of Apple or user. There may not be a Word fault. There was an obscure Word setting for  AutoRecover file location set to a nonexistent location which I replaced with a location that I could easily find. We also determined (at least on first try) that the word file transferred from my relatively new external hard drive to my main hard drive didn't have the problem thus meaning a possible external hard drive issue. To quote the agent: <<How do I do this? "Ensure that the AutoRecover file location is set to a local path. Sometimes, if it's set to a network drive or an external drive, it can cause issues">>