So, after talking with tech-support, and experimenting on my own, it seems to be the auto-save function that doesn't work, no matter how many minutes it's set to.  

The only way it will save is if I Ctrl-S, or save on my way out at the Save -Yes/No box.    

If I Ctrl-S, then close the client, it will not ask me Save -Yes/No, presumably because it just saved.  

I have auto-save set to 5 minutes currently and I entered data in a field, waited 10 minutes, then closed the client, chose No to saving upon exit (should have auto-saved by now), then reopen the client, and the data is gone.  

Saving works - Auto Save does not.  

Tech support had me on the phone for over an hour and all I got from that was a couple of links to help me create exceptions for proseries in the firewall, which I did.  The second link was about anti-virus and it's all Greek to me - didn't appear to show any how-to's at all.   If those 2 links didn't solve it for me, ProSeries tech support's suggestion was to call Microsoft, which I did and they will have to call me back in 21 hours and 35 minutes.  

Lisa - can you confirm that your auto-save actually works?  Or are you manually saving on the way out, or when you step away from the computer?  If you've got yours set for 1 minute, enter some data, then after a few minutes, you exit, do you get the Save-Y/N question?  If you do, then it's not auto-saving.  

Thanks