Outlook 2003 Switches Directory When "Save As" .oft Selected

[lcl99]

For a while I had a hard time updating Outlook template files (.oft)
that I had created and couldn't figure out why. Then I noticed that
Outlook 2003 pulls a fast one when I do a Save As. Normally, when a
Save As popup box comes up, you can browse and select the directory,
then select the file type you want to save the file as
(.html, .doc, .txt, etc.), and click on Save. In the case of Outlook,
however, if you select a directory and then select type .oft, it will
switch the directory to Outlook's Template folder. If you don't notice
this and just click on Save, you'll think your saves are going to
limbo somewhere. My questions are:

1. Could this be considered a design flaw in Outlook? It violates
normal expectations of standard Windows Save box behavior.
Furthermore, it only seems to do it with .oft and not any other types.

2. Can this behavior be changed so that changing to type .oft won't
cause it to switch directories?

3. Do later versions of Outlook do the same thing?

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

1) No. Word does the same thing, putting its .dot templates by default in the Templates folder, so that it's easier to reuse them. Same with Outlook, the "User-defined templates in file system" option in Tools | Forms | Choose Forms defaults to the Templates folder.

2) No.

3) Yes.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers