Is Word.officeUI unamenable to Window's hard link?

[New Daddy]

I'm trying to sync the QAT settings across multiple computers by putting Word.officeUI in a Dropbox folder and creating a hardlink to it in C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OFFICE of each computer.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work. When I modify the QAT, the Word.officeUI in the C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OFFICE is modified accordingly. But it doesn't sync back to original file in the Dropbox folder. I've done similar "cloudifying" using Dropbox with other applications, and they all work.

Is there anything that prevents my scheme of using Hard Link and Dropbox to sync Word.officeUI?

[HansV]

I think Word deletes Word.officeUI then creates a new one. The new one isn't a hard link, of course.

In other words, you cannot use a hard link for this purpose.

[New Daddy]

I'm getting really frustrated with the inability to sync my user settings across multiple computers. It was seamlessly done with Word 2007.

As an alternative, I'm thinking of writing a VBA macro that compares Word.officeUI in the C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OFFICE with the one in the Dropbox folder and let the newer one replace the older one.

Is VBA sophisticated enough to handle this? Can someone tell me which VBA command should be used?

[HansV]

The following is untested, test carefully and make a backup copy of Word.officeUI first. I don't think you'll be able to run the code from Word or when Word is active, for I suspect that Word.officeUI will be locked. So you could try running it from Excel, for example, after closing Word.

Code: Select all

Sub Test()
    Dim fso As Object
    Dim strProfile As String
    Dim strPath1 As String
    Dim strPath2 As String
    Dim fil1 As Object
    Dim fil2 As Object
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    strProfile = Environ("UserProfile")
    strPath1 = strProfile & "\DropBox\Word.officeUI"
    Set fil1 = fso.GetFile(strPath1)
    strPath2 = strProfile & "\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Word.officeUI"
    Set fil2 = fso.GetFile(strPath2)
    If fil1.DateLastModified < fil2.DateLastModified Then
        fso.CopyFile strPath2, strPath1, True
    ElseIf fil1.DateLastModified > fil2.DateLastModified Then
        fso.CopyFile strPath1, strPath2, True
    End If
End Sub

[New Daddy]

It doesn't seem to work (even after correcting the first instance of Word.officUI to Word.officeUI).

It doesn't bring up any error but fails to sync the two files.

The following is untested, test carefully and make a backup copy of Word.officeUI first. I don't think you'll be able to run the code from Word or when Word is active, for I suspect that Word.officeUI will be locked. So you could try running it from Excel, for example, after closing Word.

Code: Select all

Sub Test()
    Dim fso As Object
    Dim strProfile As String
    Dim strPath1 As String
    Dim strPath2 As String
    Dim fil1 As Object
    Dim fil2 As Object
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    strProfile = Environ("UserProfile")
    strPath1 = strProfile & "\DropBox\Word.officUI"
    Set fil1 = fso.GetFile(strPath1)
    strPath2 = strProfile & "\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Word.officeUI"
    Set fil2 = fso.GetFile(strPath2)
    If fil1.DateLastModified < fil2.DateLastModified Then
        fso.CopyFile strPath2, strPath1, True
    ElseIf fil1.DateLastModified < fil2.DateLastModified Then
        fso.CopyFile strPath1, strPath2, True
    End If
End Sub

[HansV]

Sorry, there was another typo in the code. I have now corrected it, and I have also tested it. It works, even from within Word.

[New Daddy]

Sorry, there was another typo in the code. I have now corrected it, and I have also tested it. It works, even from within Word.

Yes, it works!

I think it's the closest thing to user settings-syncro we can pull off under Word's current architecture.

Thanks!