Excel 2K3 sp2, WinXP Pro sp2.
Tools | Options | General | Default File Location
or
Tools | Options | Save | AutoRecover Save Location
It seems I made a typing error when I entered the path in one (or both)
of these text boxes (why haven't they ever added a Browse dialog to these?)
The resulting behavior is that when I navigate to Tools | Options and
try to select the Save or General tab to fix it, I get an error message:
"Unable to locate directory". The error message only has an OK button,
and the General (or Save) tab never displays, which effectively locks me
out of fixing the error manually.
/unregserver and /regserver didn't fix the problem, BTW. I presumed that
this would restore these settings to the factory defaults, but no luck.
Comments/suggestions welcome.
Do you feel comfortable editing the registry?
Close Excel first.
Windows Start button|Run
Regedit
and hit ok
Traverse to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options
under: DefaultPath
And carefully change the path to what you want (or delete the key and accept
Excel's default and change it later???)
And in the same branch:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options
under: AutoRecoverPath
And delete that key.
====
Remember to backup your registry first--just in case.
> Excel 2K3 sp2, WinXP Pro sp2.
>
[quoted text clipped - 17 lines]
>
> Comments/suggestions welcome.

Signature
Dave Peterson
Fester Bestertester - 21 Jan 2007 00:11 GMT
Ahh, I thought it might be a reg hack. Thanks, I'll try it.
> Do you feel comfortable editing the registry?
>
[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]
>>
>> Comments/suggestions welcome.
Fester Bestertester - 21 Jan 2007 00:35 GMT
Thanks, it worked. PS Instead of deleting the AutoRecoverPath key, I
actually just edited both values. Works fine now. Thanks again.
> Do you feel comfortable editing the registry?
>
[quoted text clipped - 42 lines]
>>
>> Comments/suggestions welcome.
Dave Peterson - 21 Jan 2007 01:49 GMT
Thanks for posting back.
> Thanks, it worked. PS Instead of deleting the AutoRecoverPath key, I
> actually just edited both values. Works fine now. Thanks again.
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
> >>
> >> Comments/suggestions welcome.

Signature
Dave Peterson