WD97: Can't Use UNC Drive for Document Path on Some Networks

When you click Open on the File menu, Word shows documents available on the desktop or in the root directory of drive C, even though the Document Path setting points to a network drive.

Changing the Documents setting in the File Locations tab of the Options dialog box (on the Tools menu, click Options) does not change this behavior.

This happens on LANtastic and NFS (UNIX) networks.

To work around this problem, map the network drive to a drive letter. Then, use the RegOptions macro to reset the default document location. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Map the network drive to a drive letter.
2. Use the RegOptions macro to reset the default document location:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Templates And Add-ins.
   2. Click Add.
   3. Change to the Macros subfolder. This directory is typically C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Macros.
   4. Select the Support8.dot file and click OK. This step adds the Support8 template to the "Global Templates and Add-ins" box. Click OK.
   5. On the Tools menu, point to Macro and click Macros.
   6. In the Macros In list, click "Support8.dot (global template)." In the Macro Name list, click RegOptions and then click Run.
   7. On the Word 8.0 Options tab, click Doc-Path in the Option list.
   8. In the Setting box, type the path to the network location (for example, G:\user\mydocs).
   9. Click OK.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

For additional information that may help in resolving this issue, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For additional information on networks that are supported by Office 97, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

The third-party products that are discussed in this article are manufactured by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of these products.