Edit My Places in Office dialog windows
by Mark on Jan.07, 2009, under general
We’ve all used Microsoft Office at least once. I came across a great tip today detailing how to edit the My Places list in the Open and Save as dialog windows in Microsoft Office applications. You can add or remove places from the list with just a few Registry tweaks.
Note: Before you go screwing around, it would be wise to back up the Registry, especially if you are not comfortable with editing it.
Now that you’ve backed up your Registry (you did do that, right?) and closed all Office applications, you will want to browse to the key "[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Version]\Common\Open Find\ Places\UserDefinedPlaces]", where "[Version]" is replaced by a version number according to the table of Office versions below:
| Office Version | Replace "[Version]" with |
|---|---|
| 2000 | 9.0 |
| XP (2002) | 10.0 |
| 2003 | 11.0 |
| 2007 | 12.0 |
I would guess that future versions of Office will follow the trend accordingly.
Update: Apparently Microsoft is skipping 13.0.
Once you get to the key, create a new sub-key for each place you would like to add. The names of the sub-keys should be "Place#", where the ‘#’ is replaced by a unique number, starting with ‘1′ (e.g. Place1, Place2, Place3, etc.). In each of the sub-keys that you created, add two string values (REG_SZ type) with the names "Name" and "Path", where the data for these values are the name and the path of the new custom place, respectively. Take a look at the example below, where I have added a custom place called "H Drive" with the path "H:\".
Now when you open or save a document in an Office application, the new custom place joins the rest of the standard places (e.g. My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, etc.) in the My Places list on the left of the dialog window. If you have different versions of Office applications installed, you will need to duplicate these changes to the Registry keys for the other versions of Office.
I mentioned that you can also remove places that are in the list. This tweak is very similar to the one above. In the Registry, go to "[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Version]\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces]", again replacing "Version]" with the appropriate version from the table above.
Find the key for the standard place you would like to hide and open it. Do not delete it. Add a new DWORD value (REG_DWORD type) and name it "Show". Edit the value of the DWORD so that it is ‘1′ if you want the place to show in the list, or ‘0′ if you want the place to be hidden in the list. If you change your mind later, just toggle the value of the DWORD.
For more information about these and other My Places tweaks, check out Microsoft KB Article 826214 – How to customize the My Places bar in both the Open and the Save As dialog boxes in Office.
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January 7th, 2009 on 8:37 pm
“I would guess that future versions of Office will follow the trend accordingly”
Interestingly enough, the next version of Office (expected Q4 or next Q1) is version 14.0. It turns out MS is almost as superstitious as Brad.
January 7th, 2009 on 8:40 pm
@Bertrand: Awesome! Then, I guess the trend will just skip 13. I will probably pass on the next version anyway, unless it is another dramatic change in UI, but this time from the stupid ribbon back to traditional toolbars.