Scripting default file locations?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Damian Clemente
  • Start date Start date
D

Damian Clemente

We are currently manually changing the default file
locations for all Office XP apps once the user profiles
are created on new systems. It would be nice to run a
script which could change the file locations automatically
for World, Excel and PPT. The location is simply changing
from Docs and Settings\User\My Docs to Docs and
Settings\User\My Docs\Word etc. How would I create this
script, there don't seem to be Reg entries for default
file locations for the Office Apps under Options? What
would I use for the user folder under Docs and Settings,
can I use a variable to reflect whoever the current user
is?
 
Hi Damian

If a Word setup has not changed the default location for documents, then
there will be no entry in the registry. If you change the default location,
you'll see that it is at
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Word\Options\DOC-PATH.
Similarly, Word will create a STARTUP-PATH if the user has changed the
default startup location. If a user changes the locations back to the
defaults, Word deletes the relevant key. That's why you can't find the
entries in the registry.

Note that, within the key name, 10.0 means Office XP. 11.0 means 2003. 9.0
means 2000.

But, may I ask you a question?

I would be interested in understanding the thinking behind your aim. I have
seen corporate setups that create separate folders for users according to
the applications they use. So that the default location for Word documents
is a Word folder, and the default location for Excel files is an Excel
folder.

But most users' machines that I observe group files according to subject or
purpose. So a user might create one folder and in it you'd find
Budget0405.xls which is the spreadsheet for the budget, Budget0405.doc,
which is the letter that goes out to departments with the budget, and
Budget0405.ppt which is the PowerPoint presentation about the budget. Most
users I've seen would want to group those files in one folder. They wouldn't
want all the Word files together, and all the Excel files together.

So I'm curious as to understand the thinking behind grouping files by type,
rather than by subject. Any comments?

Hope this helps.

Shauna Kelly. Microsoft MVP.
http://www.shaunakelly.com/word
 
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