Office 2007 Customization Tool - Places Bar Location Configuration

[SteveJHU]

Hi,
Has anyone tried configuring the Office 2007 Places Bar Locations settings
in the Office Customization Tool (OCT)? They are under Modify user settings
- Microsoft Office 2007 system - File Open/Save dialog box - Places Bar
Locations.
We have tried many different configurations, and none have appeared in the
Save/Open window in any of the Office programs. I did notice that these
settings DO appear in the registry under
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Open Find\AdminAddedPlaces. They
just don't show up in the actual programs. Does anyone know if this actually
works or if this is a bug? Thanks!

Steve

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Am I correct that you are using Office 2007 in Windows XP?

If so, please note that you don't need to use the OCT or the registry to
modify the places bar locations. In a File dialog box, select a target
folder (one you want added to the places bar), right-click in the Places Bar
itself, and choose Add [folder name].

Note that the Word 2007 technique is different from that of Word 2003, in
which you used Tools - Add to Places Bar.

 

[SteveJHU]

Thanks for your reply Herb. Yes, we are using Windows XP.

But I'm a Network Administrator and am not customizing this for my own use.
I am configuring an install point for Office 2007, which will be used for
hundreds of computers in our organization. We use MSP's to customize our
Office 2007 installations. One of the features of the OCT is to
pre-configure the Places Bar Locations for users, either using hard code or
variables. We want to use that feature of the OCT to configure some common
My Places settings for our users, so they can logon to any computer and have
these settings already established. And we would like to accomplish this
with the OCT and not Group Policy.

However, this feature in OCT does not seem to work as described by
Microsoft. I was wondering if there's something special we have to do to get
this to work, or if this is a bug. We've tried static settings and
variables, and different combinations of each, but none seem to work. We are
leaning towards concluding this is a bug; but we wanted to check with others
first, to see if anyone else has successfully used this.

Thanks again,
Steve

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

Ah. A number of people get confused about how users add places using
O2007/Windows XP since the method changed, and I thought you were using OCT
as a work-around.

So, I guess the question is whether Office 2007 will actually see and use
the AdminAddedPlaces entries. I added AdminAddedPlaces entries here for both
Office 11 and Office 12, and they're not showing up in either. So, my guess
is that AdminAddedPlaces is one of those things that isn't implemented. Were
you able to do this in Office 11?

Since this is an installation, and not something you're pushing to
already-installed workstations, could you arbitrarily use UserDefinedPlaces,
instead? Not the ideal situation, but it's not a perfect world.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

Thanks for your reply Herb. Yes, we are using Windows XP.

But I'm a Network Administrator and am not customizing this for my own
use.
I am configuring an install point for Office 2007, which will be used for
hundreds of computers in our organization. We use MSP's to customize our
Office 2007 installations. One of the features of the OCT is to
pre-configure the Places Bar Locations for users, either using hard code
or
variables. We want to use that feature of the OCT to configure some
common
My Places settings for our users, so they can logon to any computer and
have
these settings already established. And we would like to accomplish this
with the OCT and not Group Policy.

However, this feature in OCT does not seem to work as described by
Microsoft. I was wondering if there's something special we have to do to
get
this to work, or if this is a bug. We've tried static settings and
variables, and different combinations of each, but none seem to work. We
are
leaning towards concluding this is a bug; but we wanted to check with
others
first, to see if anyone else has successfully used this.

Thanks again,
Steve

Am I correct that you are using Office 2007 in Windows XP?

If so, please note that you don't need to use the OCT or the registry to
modify the places bar locations. In a File dialog box, select a target
folder (one you want added to the places bar), right-click in the Places
Bar
itself, and choose Add [folder name].

Note that the Word 2007 technique is different from that of Word 2003, in
which you used Tools - Add to Places Bar.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com

 

[SteveJHU]

Hi Herb,
This was not available in 11. As we were looking through the new features
available in the v12 OCT, we found a place to create default settings for the
My Places Bar, called Places Bar Locations. We were pretty excited about it
being an option in the OCT now. I think there's 10 locations that can be
configured. After several installation tests where we noticed that the
Places Bar Locations setting had no effect, I snooped into the registry to
see if those settings were even being sent to the machine at all. I found
the settings in AdminAddedPlaces; but, just like you experienced, it had no
effect. We're thinking this is a bug in the OCT.
Yeah, as a work-around, we could configure custom registry entries in the
OCT for UserDefinedPlaces. I think we will go ahead an try that. The only
downside is that I don't think we can use variables in that section like
Microsoft states we can for the Places Bar Locations section that wasn't
working.
Since the OCT is built into setup.exe, I don't imagine Microsoft putting out
a replacement for setup.exe to fix the problem. Oh well : )
Thanks!
Steve