OFF2000: Up One Level from My Documents Leads to the Desktop (277794)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Excel 2000
  • Microsoft Office 2000 (Setup) Service Release 1 (SR-1)
  • Microsoft Access 2000
  • Microsoft FrontPage 2000
  • Microsoft Outlook 2000
  • Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
  • Microsoft Publisher 2000
  • Microsoft Word 2000
  • the operating system: Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
This article was previously published under Q277794

SYMPTOMS

If you click the Up One Level button in the Open or Save As dialog box while the current location is the My Documents folder, the desktop appears. Also, if you click Look in or Save in, there are no subfolders shown for My Documents.

If your operating system is Windows NT Workstation 4.0, the behavior is the same except that the folder is named Personal rather than My Documents.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs after you install the Office 2000 SR-1 Update.

MORE INFORMATION

Folders named Desktop and My Documents (or Personal in Windows NT 4.0) may be found in a number of locations in your file system, particularly if your computer uses user profiles. user profiles are always used in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, and may be used in Windows 95 and Windows 98. User profiles let a number of different users maintain their own settings on the computer, including their individual folders identified as Desktop and My Documents.

For example, on a computer using Windows 2000, two users with names Bill and Jill might find their respective My Documents folders in these locations:

C:\Documents and Settings\Profiles\Bill\My Documents

and

C:\Documents and Settings\Profiles\Jill\My Documents

respectively. By default each would find a shortcut to his own My Documents folder on his own desktop when he starts the computer and might expect that when he browsed up one level from My Documents he would find the resources of his Desktop folder.

Microsoft Office 2000 SR-1 produces this result when you click the Up One Level button in its Save As or Open dialogs, but the first release of Office 2000 did not. In the first release, clicking the Up One Level button brought the user to the My Documents' parent folder in the file system, which in the example above would be C:\Documents and Settings\Profiles.

The following table lists the actual locations of the My Documents folder in file structure of recent operating systems. 
    Operating System                  My Documents location        
    ----------------                  ------------------------      
    Windows 95/98                     C:\My Documents\My Documents
      (User profiles disabled)  

    Windows 95/98                     C:\Windows\Profiles\<username>\My Documents
      (user profiles enabled and
       Personalized My Documents)

    Windows NT 4.0 Workstation        C:\Winnt\Profiles\<username>\My Documents

    Windows 2000                      C:\Documents and Settings\Profiles\<username>\My Documents

    Windows Me                        C:\Windows\Profiles\<username>\My Documents
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:6/29/2004
Keywords:kbprb KB277794
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