hello all --
i too have been having trouble with files becoming corrupted, failing to load and crashing vw.
i have windowsxpsp2 with plenty of room on the hard drive according to vw's own install requirements. two days ago i lost a file completely in the manner seena describes above and had to completely redraw the thing only to have it happen again the morning on the same drawing version 2!
it seems that the files grow slow while im working and then shut down altogether. looking at their properties may shed some light onto the issue as mine that have failed have unreasonably grown to an astronomical size (152MB!!!). keep in mind these are simple drawings, extrudes, no symbols or plugins, etc.
there seems to be a failure in the program somewhere as saved and backup files have been corrupted in the same way.
i am a new vw11.5 user and was sold on the product by looking at the website and talking to one colleague who had used vw in an earlier version. sadly, i didn't look at this forum before purchasing or i may have made a different choice.
there is a lot of talk about problems like this elsewhere in the forum. from talking on the phone and emailing various people at NNA, this problem seems to be unsolved and varied in its cause. but for all the griping about the crashes and such, the individuals i have spoken with have been genuinely concerned, responsive and respectful of the predictament we're all in.