OFF2000: Unable to Modify Office Shortcuts (229396)

WORKAROUND

If you want to customize the Office shortcuts on the Programs menu, you can use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Create Your Own Shortcuts

You can create your own shortcuts to the Office programs and replace the ones installed by Office with the ones you create.

NOTE: Any shortcuts you create using this method will not be Windows Installer shortcuts and will not take advantage of the features offered by the Windows Installer. See the "More Information" section for details.

For example, to replace the shortcut for Microsoft Word, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, and click Windows Explorer.
2. In Windows Explorer, open the \Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder, and delete the shortcut for Word.
3. In Windows Explorer, open the \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office folder, and right-click Winword.exe.
4. Click Create Shortcut, on the shortcut menu.
5. Right-click the shortcut that was just created and modify the necessary fields on the Shortcut tab. Click OK.
6. Move this shortcut to the \Windows\Start Menu\Programs folder.

NOTE: Your custom shortcut may be replaced by a Windows Installer shortcut if your name the shortcut Microsoft Word, and either of the following are true:

• You use the Detect and Repair feature in Office, and you have the Repair my shortcuts while repairing check box selected. -or-
  
  
• You select the Repair Office option in Maintenance Mode setup, click the Repair errors in my Office installation option, and then you select the Restore My Shortcuts check box.

In this situation, you would have to recreate your custom, non-Windows Installer, shortcuts.

Method 2: Customizing Shortcuts with the Custom Installation Wizard

The Custom Installation Wizard (CIW) is a tool available in the Microsoft Office Resource Kit (ORK). The advantage of this approach is that the custom shortcuts created by the CIW will be Windows Installer shortcuts, so you will have custom shortcuts, but you will also take advantage of the features offered by the Windows Installer.

To create custom shortcuts using the CIW, follow these steps:

1. Start the Custom Installation Wizard.
2. In Step 2 of the CIW, locate and select Data1.msi from your installation source.
3. Provide a path and name for the transform file (.mst) in Step 4 of the CIW.
4. In Step 11 of the CIW, select the shortcut you want to customize and click Modify.
5. In the Add/Modify Shortcut Entry dialog box you can specify any or all of the following items:
   • Target
   • Location
   • Name
   • Start in (location)
   • Shortcut key
   • Run (window state)
   • Icon
6. Make the changes to the shortcut properties and then click OK.
7. Repeat Steps 4-6 for each of the shortcuts you want to customize.
8. Click Finish. The last step in the CIW will provide the command-line switches for running Office Setup using the transform file created by the CIW.
   
   NOTE: The /qb+ switch on the end of the example command-line is optional.
   
   
9. Run Office Setup using the command-line provided by the CIW. For example, your command-line might look like the following
   
   

   <path>\Setup.exe Transforms=<drive>:\<MyShortcuts>.mst
   							

   where path is the path to Setup.exe and drive:\MyShortcuts is the path and name of the transform file (.mst).