BleepingComputer.com: MS Word configuration

I'm setting up a new computer and have installed Office 2003 onto it. I still have this version of Office on my old computer but don't want to delete it until I can find the configuration files for all components. By configuration files I'm referring to the files that tell Word, Excel, Outlook, etcetera which toolbars to display, what language to use for a dictionary, page setup defaults, etcetera.

Anyone have any ideas?

Gumby©

What you're referring to are your personal preferences that need to be designated when you install any Office program. This can be customized easily and can vary from computer to computer.

To set which toolbars show automatically, pull down View, then select Toolbars. Check off which toolbars you want to always be visible.

To make other preference changes:

Pull down the Tools menu. Choose Customize, then Options tab. This is where you can select if you want the Standard and Formatting toolbars to be on 2 rows or not (place a check in the box if you want them on two rows). You can also select if you want your program to show full menus at all times here, too.

Also in the Tools --> Customize menu is the Commands tab. Here you can add command buttons to any toolbar by dragging and dropping the individual command onto the toolbar location where you want it to be placed.

To further customize your options, pull down Tools, then choose Options. There are many tabs in this submenu. Here you can choose to turn off the StartUp pane, set your user information (like your name and initials), remove the drawing canvas when you use auto shapes, and set your printing options (such as reverse order printing).

Hope that answers your question.

Thank you for your quick response. However, that's what I'm trying to avoid since I have to do this with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Visio, Project, Publisher, OneNote and FrontPage. I'm trying to save some time and aggravation. It would be so much simpler to copy the configuration files or preferences from the old to new computer.

Gumby©

You'll have to see if someone else can jump into this and advise you of a potential solution. I know that Word has a normal.doc template, but I couldn't locate the specific folder it's in and personally, I don't know if I would copy it from one computer to another (just MHO).

I know that any time I've set up a new machine (and I teach in a computer lab with 26 stations with MS Office Pro, Front Page, Macromedia 8 and Adobe CS2), I've always manually configured each machine separately. Yes, it's time consuming, but I knew for sure my software would be functional and operative if I did it that way. Our IT technician has never suggested I do it otherwise, either.

Let's see if someone with a lot more knowledge than me comes to the rescue and offers a shortcut. I'd love to hear one.

Actually, after your reference to the word 'preferences' to what I was calling 'configuration' files I did another Google and found that under the Start Menu in the Microsoft Office group is a smaller group called 'Microsoft Office Tools' and within that sub-group is an option called 'Save my Settings Wizard'. It worked almost perfectly. There were a few options I had to fixed based on moving the settings from an XP environment to a Vista environment. Otherwise I saved myself a LOT of time and clicking and going back and forth to things I forgot I did several years ago when I originally setup my old computer.

If your 26 computers are not networked (if they are you should be able to create an image and just install from the server) you may want to consider this option next time you have to setup all of those computers.

Gumby©

Good to know. Thanks for the info. Never really went into the MS Office Tools menu, so I've learned something today.

Thank you!