Save and Restore Your Microsoft Office Settings
How many times have you migrated to a new computer and lost all the little settings in Word or Excel that you had finally tweaked perfectly?
The good news is that you can easily save and restore your Microsoft Office settings and even transfer them to another computer.
To open the wizard, go to Start \ Programs \ Microsoft Office \ Microsoft Office Tools \ Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard.
Check Save the settings from this machine and click next.
In this window decide where you want to store the settings by typing in the direct path or Browsing to the location. Windows will save all of your settings to a single file. Remember where you save this file for when you want to recover your settings. Click on Finish.
While Windows gathers all of your Office settings the progress bar will pop up.
Once the backup is completed you will get the following verification screen. If everything looks correct click Exit.
If you are migrating to a new machine, it would be a good idea to save the file onto a flash drive, or somewhere easily accessible from the new computer.
To restore the settings you will go to your new computer (which should already have Office installed), open the same wizard and select "Restore previously saved settings to this machine". This is why it is a good idea to write down where you saved the settings if on a network.
That's the beauty of this site. It also reminds me of the tweaks I used to know, but forgot about. Thanks HTG!
Is there a way to do this in the new Office 2007.
Can anyone tell me the path for the actual executable? Maybe I deleted the shortcut but its not in my Office Tools folder, and its tough to find it in program folders
Scott,
[edit] I have not used the wizard in 2007, but I read that it was removed? Here's some alternatives if that's the case:
Windows User State Migration Tool
http://www.microsoft.com/downl.....layLang=en
You could also use Vista Easy Transfer, but I don't think that's an actual backup.
AMDZen,
The shortcut isn't a normal shortcut, so you can't just run the executable version. Your best bet is to repair the office install and make sure to put the shortcut back.
I made a copy of my shortcut… not sure if it will work for you.
http://www.howtogeek.com/geeke.....Wizard.zip
What does it save, especially for Outlook - does it save email accounts and their settings (reply-to, remove from server, etc.) and what about outlook mail filter rules?
Does this work for Office 2007?
Megumi,
To my knowledge there is no Office 2007 Save My Settings Wizard. If your running 2007 on Vista you can use
Vista's Easy transfer wizard or the User State Migration Tool 3.0
I am searching for a work around if 2007 is installed on XP. Perhaps one of our readers has a suggestion?
is there a way to bring back the office 2003 look and feel? everything has been changed around in 2007.
Jebus,
There is a way to do this via third party software. I just saw some this week on Digg I think.
I have not found a way to do it within Office native settings.
I would imagine with some more time there will be some open source tweaking software …
good site
I just tried to use the method above to save my settings for MSWord 2003, but it did not work. I customized the tool bars, then ran the wizard, but the wizard requires you to turn off MS Word. As soon as you turn it off, the customization is lost . When I re-open word, the customization is gone and the toolbars have returned to their default settings. When I try to restore from the wizard, the same thing happens: customization gone, default settings returned.
In the past, when I customized MSWord, it remembered the customization automatically, so the next time I opened the program, my custom toolbars were still there, but now it will not remember. Each time I open word, it has returned to its default settings.
Any advice or fixes?
Thanks.
Marc,
The "Microsoft Office 2003 Save My Settings Wizard" is meant to be used for transferring your settings if you were to change computers or replace your Hard Drive.
As for the problem your experiencing, there could be several factors involved. You might want to try a repair install. Pop in your Office 2003 disc and select Repair Installation as an option.
Has anyone ever had troubles with this feature before? I have been using it to back up my autocorrect settings and macros for the past year and have been extremely happy with it, as my work depends on having these autocorrect settings at my fingertips. However I just tried to do a restore with my backup of my saved settings (OPS) file and I get the following error message: "The OPS file cannot be read by the wizard. For more information, see the proflwiz.hlp file." I checked this file out and can't figure out why it's not working, and am getting pretty desperate at this point because my work really depends on these settings which I thought I had done a great job of backing up! I even tried an earlier version of the file and still the same problem.
Any ideas, or has anyone encountered this before??
Thanks so much in advance,
-lindsey
I have accidently removed my microsoft windows word and excel, I have microsoft xp how do I restore
Yeah, Lindsey I got the same message and am wandering how to fix it. I was using Microsoft Office 2003 and am now using Microsoft Office XP so that may be the problem, are you using the same version of Office?
I am having problem with my MS Office 2003. I had MS 2003 professional for the last year and had prbelms so I thought I could just install the Student/Teacher version of MS Office 2003 onto my computer. I did everything that I was supposed to do and it did install. the problem is that I did not realize that I probably should have deleted the other version before installing the student version. So I went back in and deleted the Professional version. Now none of my Shortcuts are working. The Start button Shortcuts do not work wither. I have to go into my Programs Files and open Office and then select one of the programs to run.
I have tried to repair the 2003 student Office and checked enable shortcuts, but this does not work. I have tried to send the shortcuts to the Desk Top and this does not work. I am at a loss here. Does anyone know how to get my shortcuts to worka again???
Sorry for all the spelling errors. I should have proof read before I sent it…
Amber,
Have you tried starting out fresh? Meaning… Do a complete uninstall of 2003 student Office. Make sure there are no lingering after files from the install too… by going into C:\program files and making sure there are no office files or folders. Then do a search of your C:\ drive type in Office and search… making sure there are no lurking office files anywhere….
Now install Student Edition …
2003 Pro to student edition is a downgrade so I am thinking you have kind of a mess going on with the files on the hard drive. In fact you might want to do a disk defrag before re installing student edition…
I just upgraded from Offiece 2000 to Office 2003 and (stupid of me) did not store any of my email files in the personal folder. (I know I should have exported it to a .pst file). Is there any way of restoring or copying the information from the previous version (I did not delete any of the "resotre" files when the machine said it was storing it in a 270 MB disk space — I donot know where).
Can you please help in resuurecting these files. In the SEARCH for a *.pst file, it came out and said there was no file with that name anywhere in my C drive.
Before running a search for *.pst files, make sure you can see hidden files:
Open My Computer > Tools > Folder Options > View
Put a checkmark next to Show Hidden Files and Folders > OK
Click on Search
Type: *.pst in the name box, Look In the C: drive, and make sure under "More Advanced" options you check "Search Hidden Files & Folders"
Now click on SEARCH
Can the "Save my settings wizard" be used by an admin to restore other users Office Settings? In other word, does this only save the settings for the user who is currently logged in?
Will this wizard work for transferring autocomeplete data from MS Office on a windows machine to MS Office on a mac?
so when i delete in the middle of a sentance it totally deletes everything.. like the last time i used it.. it worked fine. but today i was doing some work and i was doing some editing and i couldnt edit because every time i tried to add a word in the middle of a sentance it took the whole next word and just added this word on top of it.. im so lost..
HELP?
I recently migrated to a new computer (Dell to Lenovo). I have a legit copy of Office 2003, but can not find the original disk (education copy bought from Walmart 1 year ago). I have all the info on my Dell, (product code, etc). Called Microsoft, and they said that they could send a replacement copy to me ($29.00 total including shipping). I ordered the copy, and they accepted. Is there a way to get the copy off my old computer? I am sure that once MS sends the disc, I will find my old copy. There must be some way to retrieve off my old computer…..can anyone help?
My Vista OS has been corrupted for the third or fourth time in less than a year, and I'm really sick of having to manually re-enter my Office 2007 options.
Can anyone tell me what directory the options are stored in so I can retrieve the settings through linux?
I've created an OSP file from Office 07 - but I want to find a way for Office to automatically restore the settings from there when it's installed, perhaps by creating an MSP file from it and putting it in the Updates folder.
Any ideas how?
Ok I actually used the 2003 wizard (upgraded to 07 so it was still there).
From the Office11 folder there is an INI file that tells the 2003 wizard what to backup. You could change the INI file to backup Office 2007 settings instead - or you could just export the HKLM\Software\Mircosoft\Office\12 area and try that - I will be experimenting with these ideas now.
@ Ryan
Hi,
I experimented with using the 2003 Save Settings Wizzard on Office 2007 installed on XP Home.
I installed Office 2007.
I then used the Office 2003 cd to custom install the 2003 Save Settings Wizzard.
I could run the 2003 Save Settings Wizzard and save settings from Office 2007.
——-these needs further testing and I am sorry to say I am unable to test further due to some other projects I am working on.
One thing I did note was that with 2003 Save Settings Wizzard installed with Office 2007 I was additionallly offered Office 2003 updates [all of them] in addition to Office 2007 updates…..I chose to manually accept just the Office 2007 updates and this seemed to work.
Like I said, it would be great if somone could test this method further…unfortunately I haven't the time and had to uninstall Office 2007 and reinstall Office 2003 due to work constraints.
It would be great to hear from any one testing this further.
Go well,
Chalawah
Yes - I have been getting a stack of Office 03 updates being pushed down from our WSUS server which is a tad annoying.
I'll be uninstall and reinstalling Office a few times making sure that my custom made MSP file applies all the right settings without leaving anything.
I also extracted all the msp files from the SP1.exe file for O-2007 - which is causing BSODs for my profile when I restart (only when connected to our network). All other profiles login fine on the network - and mine logs in when offline. So I'm trying to find the lause of that since it's happened on 2 PCs now.