OFF97: Error Starting Programs from Office Shortcut Bar (159606)

SYMPTOMS

When you start any of the Microsoft Office 97 programs from the Office Shortcut Bar, you may receive an error message similar to the following:

c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe

The directory name is invalid.

and you are unable to start the program.

NOTE: If you then attempt to start the same Office program from the Windows 95 Programs menu, the program starts successfully.

CAUSE

This problem may occur when the following conditions are true:

You select a folder for the Workgroup Templates Location on the Settings tab in the Office Shortcut Bar Customize dialog box.

-and-
You then rename the folder you selected for the Workgroup Templates Location.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, do either of the following:

Rename the folder to the original name you specified in the Settings tab of the Office Shortcut Bar Customize dialog box.

-or-
Change the Workgroup Templates Location to the new folder name.

NOTE: If you want to delete the setting for the Workgroup Templates Location in the Settings tab of the Office Shortcut Bar Customize dialog box, you must delete it from Microsoft Word. To do this, use the following steps:

Start Microsoft Word.
On the Tools menu, click Options.
In the Options dialog box, click the File Locations tab.
Under File Types, click Workgroup Templates and then click Modify.
In the Modify Location dialog box, delete the contents of the Folder Name box, and then click OK.

The location for Workgroup Templates is cleared.
In the Options dialog box, click OK.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

156201 OFF97: Cannot Delete Workgroup Templates Path in OSB Dialog

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

By selecting a Workgroup templates location, a group of users can share the same templates without having to store the templates on each user's computer. The templates that are stored in the location you specify for Workgroup templates are available in the New dialog box.

REFERENCES

For more information about workgroup templates, click the Index tab in Microsoft Word Help, type the following text

   workgroup templates

and then double-click the selected text to go to the "About the availability of templates" topic.