OFF95: My Documents Folder Created on Root of User Drive

ID: Q135800

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office for Windows 95, version 7.0
Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, version 7.0
Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 95, version 7.0
Microsoft Word for Windows 95, version 7.0

SYMPTOMS

When you install Microsoft Office or a Microsoft Office application to a user folder on a network drive (for example, if you are running on a diskless workstation), the following may occur:

The folder "My Documents" is created on the root of the drive that contains your user folder.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because the Setup program for the Microsoft Office applications creates a "My Documents" folder at the root of the folder to which you install the Office application. For example, if you install Microsoft Excel to d:\Msoffice\Excel, then the Setup program creates the folder "My Documents" on the root to the D drive (d:\My Documents).

Because of this behavior, if you install an Office application to a user folder on a network drive, such as f:\User1, the My Documents folder is created on the root of the F drive (f:\My Documents). However, in this case, the root of the F drive may contain may other user folders, so that all of the users that install an Office application on this server will share the "My Documents" folder.

RESOLUTION

To set up the Office applications so that each user on the network has their own My Documents folder, each user must be mapped directly to their own specific subfolder on the network share. Each user should have a drive letter, for example G, mapped directly to their own subfolder on the server share as follows:

user1 - g: mapped to \\Server\Share\User1
user2 - g: mapped to \\Server\Share\User2

Each user then installs Office to "g:\" and Setup will create the "My Documents" folder at the root of that drive. Because each user has mapped drive G to a separate folder, they will each have their own "My Documents" folder:

user1 - g:\My Documents = \\Server\Share\User1\My Documents
user2 - g:\My Documents = \\Server\Share\User2\My Documents

Before any users install an Office application to a network drive, you need to insure that each user is mapped to a separate folder on the network share. This means that you need to make sure the appropriate network shares are defined in advance, and you need to edit user login scripts where the mapping occurs or inform users of the correct mapping procedure.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this problem and how to work around it, see the "Creating "My Documents" Folder on a Server for Multiple Users" section in the Network.txt file, located on Setup Disk 1 of your Office application. The Network.txt file is also located in the folder to which you install your Office application.

REFERENCES

Network.txt, Microsoft Office for Windows 95, version 7.0, Setup Disk 1


Keywords          : offwin 
Version           : 7.00
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: June 18, 1999