Setting default "save as" folder

[John Gray]

I'm sure I have asked this question before (probably about Outlook 2003), but I can't find it via Search!

When you right-click on an attachment in Outlook 2010, it seems to bring up a standard folder in which the attachment would be saved. I would like to be able to set up my own specific default folder, but I can't see how to do this.

Any ideas, please?!

[HansV]

You have to edit the registry for this. The usual dire warnings apply.

In RegEdit, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\Options.
Select Edit | New | String Value.
Name the new entry DefaultPath.
Double-click DefaultPath.
Enter the folder that you want to designate as default save location.
Click OK.

If Outlook was running, quit and restart it.

[John Gray]

Thanks, Hans - the DefaultPath/Default-Path was there already for Outlook, as it was also for Word and Excel, so I changed the lot! Brilliant!

[John Gray]

Just revisiting this question, now that at work we have converted to Office 2010, and I find that although the value DefaultPath exists for Excel, the equivalent in Word appears (in my registry at least!) as DOC-PATH. PowerPoint doesn't appear to store any value in the equivalent location, but it must be held elsewhere...

[HansV]

The default save path for PowerPoint 2010 is stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\PowerPoint\RecentFolderList, in the Default entry (not to be confused with the (Default) entry):

S025.png

[John Gray]

Thanks, Hans, as ever!

All I need to know now is how to change the default "Save in" 'folder' to My Computer rather than My Documents - and yet again I'm sure I've asked that before, but a search doesn't bring it up...

[HansV]

For which application(s)?

[John Gray]

Office 2010 ones, like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher.
I've found a couple of 'fixes' for the Places Bar, which I think is what I'm talking about, but they don't seem to work.
A lot of these changes are for Office 2007 backwards, and I can't find anything 2010-specific...

[HansV]

This is for Windows XP, I presume? In Windows 7, the Open and Save As dialogs don't have a Places Bar any more.

[John Gray]

Indeed yes; Windows 7 at work is a "future objective" (© IBM).

[HansV]

I'll leave you in the capable hands of the Windows XP experts then...

[John Gray]

Further investigation makes it seem to me that what I want to do to modify the contents of the "Save As" Places bar is no longer possible with the combination of Office 2010 and XP.

I've tried a number of registry fixes from Microsoft and others by Googling for things like '"save as" places bar modifications', TweakUI, and Melloware's Places Bar Editor, but although the (apparently) correct registry keys get changed, they don't affect the actual operation of Save As. It seems that a "higher force" is operating.

Woe is one.