FrontPage 2003 Tutorial

HOW TO: Customize the My Places Bar in Both the Open and the Save As Dialog Boxes in Office 2003

This article describes how to customize the My Places bar in Microsoft Office 2003. The My Places bar appears in the left pane of both the Open and the Save As dialog boxes in Microsoft Office programs. The following customizations are available for the My Places bar.


Important: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry
 

IN THIS TASK


How to Add Items to the My Places Bar

To add an item to the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu in any Office program, click Open.
  2. In the Open dialog box, select the item that you want to add in the contents pane. For example, in the Look in list, click My Documents. On the Contents pane, click My Pictures.
  3. Click Tools, and then click Add to My Places.

Note You can add up to 256 items to the My Places bar.

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How to Remove Items from the My Places Bar

To remove an item from the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu in any Office 2003 program, click Open.
  2. On the My Places bar, right-click the item that you want to remove, and then click Remove.

Note The following default items that appear on the My Places bar cannot be removed or renamed:

  • My Recent Documents
  • Desktop
  • My Documents
  • My Computer
  • My Network Places

These items can be hidden from the My Places bar. For an example of how to hide a Standard place, view the "Registry Entry Reference" section of this article.

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How to Rename Items on the My Places Bar

To rename an item on the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu in any Office program, click Open.
  2. On the My Places bar, right-click the item that you want, and then click Rename.
  3. In the Rename Place dialog box, type the name that you want, and then click OK.

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How to Rearrange Items on the My Places Bar

To rearrange items on the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu in any Office program, click Open.
  2. On the My Places bar, right-click the item that you want to move, and then click Move Up or Move Down.

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How to Change the Size of Icons on the My Places Bar

To change the size of an icon for an item on the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. On the File menu in any Office program, click Open.
  2. Right-click a blank area of the My Places bar, and then click Small Icons or Large Icons.

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How to Edit the Registry to Hide Desktop Items

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

You can hide default icons on the My Places bar by modifying the system registry.

Note At least one icon must always appears on the My Places bar. If you try to remove all the default icons on the My Places bar, the Desktop icon will remain. If you add one custom icon, you will see that custom icon instead of the Desktop icon. To hide the Desktop item on the My Places bar, follow these steps:

  1. Quit all Office programs.
  2. Click Start, and then click Run.
  3. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
  4. Expand the following subkey:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces
  5. On the File menu, click Export.
  6. In the Export Registry File dialog box, type Export to Office 2003 in the File name box, and then click Save.
  7. Click Desktop.
  8. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
  9. In the New Value#1 box, type Show, and then press ENTER.
  10. Right-click Show, and then click Modify.
  11. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, type 0 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
  12. Quit Registry Editor.

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Registry Entry Reference

Entries on the My Places bar are contained in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\Open Find\Places

The Places key contains the following two subkeys:

  • StandardPlaces
  • UserDefinedPlaces

These two subkeys contain the StandardPlaces and the UserDefinedPlaces keys.

The StandardPlaces Subkey

This subkey contains the following five keys that correspond to the five default items that appear on the My Places bar:

KEY NAME MY PLACES ITEM
Desktop Desktop
Favorites Favorites
MyDocuments My Documents
Publishing My Network Places
Recent History

The UserDefinedPlaces Subkey

This subkey contains keys that correspond to items that are added to the My Places bar. The keys in the following table are examples of keys that are in the UserDefinedPlaces subkey:

KEY NAME MY PLACES ITEM
Place0 firstplaceadded
Place1 secondplaceadded
Place2 thirdplaceadded

The following values can be used for keys that are contained in both the StandardPlaces and the UserDefinedPlaces keys:

NAME TYPE DATA OPTIONS
View DWORD {1=List, 2=Details, 3=Summary, 4=Preview}
ArrangeBy DWORD {1=Name, 2=Type, 3=Size, 4=Date}
SortAscending DWORD Boolean to sort both ascending and descending.
Index DWORD Relative position on the My Places bar.
Show DWORD Zero to hide a Standard place.

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The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003
  • Microsoft Office Excel 2003
  • Microsoft Office Access 2003
  • Microsoft Office Publisher 2003
  • Microsoft Office Word 2003


Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 826214