You can disable the autosave in Office 16 using a registry hack. That can be called from your process (or separately) and will hold until you change it back with the following function that will toggle the setting. The function will return True if autosave is disabled or false if not.
Function AutoSaveDisabled() As Boolean
Dim wshShell As Object
Dim RegKey As String
Dim rKeyWord As String
Dim wVer As String
Set wshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
If Val(Application.Version) < 16 Then
'The security issue relates to
'Word versions from 16.0 (Word 365)
MsgBox "This macro is for Word 2016 and later!", vbOKOnly, "Wrong Word Version"
Exit Function
End If
wVer = Application.Version
Start:
RegKey = "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\" & wVer & "\Word\"
On Error Resume Next
'The registry key does not exist
rKeyWord = wshShell.RegRead(RegKey & "DontAutoSave")
If rKeyWord = "" Then
wshShell.RegWrite RegKey & "DontAutoSave", 0, "REG_DWORD" 'set it at zero
GoTo Start: 'and read it again
End If
If rKeyWord = 1 Then
wshShell.RegWrite RegKey & "DontAutoSave", 0, "REG_DWORD"
AutoSaveDisabled = False
Else
wshShell.RegWrite RegKey & "DontAutoSave", 1, "REG_DWORD"
AutoSaveDisabled = True
End If
lbl_Exit:
Exit Function
End Function