Question : How can I find a missing file

I'm using Microsoft word 2007 with Windows 7. A contractor sent me a zip file of a document that he was working on. He has Microsoft 97-2003. I opened the zip file and extracted the document. After working on it for several hours, saving it numerous times during this time interval, I finally closed it when all the editing was complete.

At this point, I went to reopen the document and could not find it. I looked in the zip file, all possible folders that I believe it might have been, all without success. I then opened up the zip file, extracting the document and proceeded to start to do a "save as" in order to see what the last location was that my computer saved files to.

It showed the Main C drive. I proceeded to look there, also without finding the file. I used Copernic Desktop Search and also couldn't locate the file, although I couldn't recall what it was called.

I thought perhaps it was under some temporary folder, or whatever...

I hope that the fact is since I saved it many times without getting any kind of error message indicating that it could not be saved, that the file is someplace.

Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to find it?

Thanks for your help.

Answer : How can I find a missing file

Sounds like you never extracted the file but simply opened it from within the zip file and were working on it from the temp folder.
These are hidden and dont show up in search results using windows search and are updated every so often.  Open the file again from the zip and click file save as, and try to find the default location.  if the temp folder appears, right click and explore.  If the file isnt there, delete the last folder entry in the path to see the other temp folders and start looking in each for your file.