My XP Pro MS Excel XLSTART Dir's have been changed somehow to Read Only and Read Only attrib cannot be changed in my knowledge.
I have tried Cmd Attrib and the Explore Properties approaches to no avail.
If XLStart Dir's are Read only they cannot be accessed.
I say dir's plural because (1) \Program files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART (herein "DirOne") and
(2) \Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART (herein "DirTwo") each are XLSTART dir's.

This problem occurred after I followed MSoft's Office tutotial advice as to creating in DirOne a Book.xlt template with custom file characteristics.
QUESRTION 1: What is reversing my changing the read only attribute in each of the two dir's back to read only immediately after I remove the read only check mark?

Question 2: Should there be two XLStart dir's or only one?

As long as the XLSTART dir is read only, every time I open Excel, I must navigate through two err wins advising that XLSTART cannot be accessed due to read only or encryption designations. (Thanks again Bill G.)

DJLF 2006 01 23 0234 HRS

//Mod edit to clear open BB code tags.
(Moderator edit: moved thread to more appropriate forum. jgweed)

This may help:

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP.

Sorry I can't help with the Xcel questions.

There can be many XLSTART directories (*), if YOU want to be confused. I don't understand why they become read-only though.

However, if all you want is some custom startup file, do this
1. Make a XLSTART directory anywhere you please, doesn't have to be in Office, just so long as YOU know where it is
2. Put any old excel file in there (will delete later)
3. Start Excel and, I suppose be faced with error messages again, for the last time, we hope
4. Go into Tools, Options, General
5. On the Alternate startup line fill in the location from step 1. Excel should now remember that location forever. If it does not, I don't have an answer.
6. Start excel. It should immediately open the file you stored in step 2. If it doesn't, I don't know what to tell you. The only reason for step 2 and this step is to make sure excel is working correctly and picking up the general settings
7. Build or restore your template file that you plan to use
8. Save it in that new startup directory
9. Delete the file you put in step 2, unless you want Excel to automatically open two files, which I doubt you do

I hope I'm answering the questions, somewhat, at least.

(*) one disclaimer - if you built custom menus in Excel and they point to code in a file in the startup directory (the old PERSONAL.XLS), changing directory location causes terrible havoc and need for reconstruction, so be careful here.