Changing the Default File Location

When you’re opening a document in Excel, by default the Open dialog box points to the My Documents folder (Windows XP) or the Documents folder (Windows Vista) as the starting location to open documents. If you keep frequently used documents in a different folder, you may want the Open dialog box to point to this different folder to save some navigation steps. To change the default folder, follow these steps:

1. Click the Office button, and then click the Excel Options button. The Excel Options dialog box appears. The options are divided into sections, which appear in a list on the left side of the dialog box.
2. Click the Save section.
3. In the Default File Location text box, enter the path of the new default starting location to open documents. For example, if your new default document location is in a subfolder named Excel, which itself is in the My Documents or Documents folder, add \Excel to the default path. The new location in the text box should read C:\Users\Username\Documents\ Excel, where Username is the actual name of the user indicated in the text box.
4. Click OK.