Trouble With Default File Location

[Fester Bestertester]

Excel 2K3 sp2, WinXP Pro sp2.

Tools | Options | General | Default File Location

or

Tools | Options | Save | AutoRecover Save Location

It seems I made a typing error when I entered the path in one (or both)
of these text boxes (why haven't they ever added a Browse dialog to these?)

The resulting behavior is that when I navigate to Tools | Options and
try to select the Save or General tab to fix it, I get an error message:
"Unable to locate directory". The error message only has an OK button,
and the General (or Save) tab never displays, which effectively locks me
out of fixing the error manually.

/unregserver and /regserver didn't fix the problem, BTW. I presumed that
this would restore these settings to the factory defaults, but no luck.

Comments/suggestions welcome.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Do you feel comfortable editing the registry?

Close Excel first.

Windows Start button|Run
Regedit
and hit ok

Traverse to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options
under: DefaultPath

And carefully change the path to what you want (or delete the key and accept
Excel's default and change it later???)

And in the same branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options
under: AutoRecoverPath

And delete that key.

====
Remember to backup your registry first--just in case.

 

[Fester Bestertester]

Ahh, I thought it might be a reg hack. Thanks, I'll try it.

 

[Fester Bestertester]

Thanks, it worked. PS Instead of deleting the AutoRecoverPath key, I
actually just edited both values. Works fine now. Thanks again.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Thanks for posting back.

Thanks, it worked. PS Instead of deleting the AutoRecoverPath key, I
actually just edited both values. Works fine now. Thanks again.