In both Windows 7 and Windows 8, the Favorites folder list in Windows Explorer reduces the need to use a Places bar, however, the Places bar can be useful in Windows 7/8, allowing you to display up to 10 additional shortcuts in the File Open explorer window in Office 2010 or 2013 applications.
Office 2013 Places Bar Registry keys
To create locations for places in Office, you can use the Group Policy editor or edit the registry directly.
To edit the registry, open the registry editor by pressing Windows key + R to open the Run command then type regedit and press Enter.
- Browse to the Policies key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies.
- If any keys do not exist, you'll need to create them.
Right click on a Place key and choose New > String - Type "name" and enter the desired display name
- Right click on the Place key a second time and choose New > String
- Type "path" and enter the desired folder path. Note: the path is case-sensitive and if you don't use a valid path, the place won't display.
- Repeat for each place you want to create.
You do not need to close the Office application to see changes ot the Places. At most, you'll need to exit the File Open dialog and re-open it.
To make it easier to edit the registry, I have a *.reg file you can download and run to add the keys to the registry. You will need to either edit the *.reg file before running it (open it in Notepad) or edit the registry after it is imported to replace my friendly names and folder paths with your own. If you don't need 10 places, delete some of the keys. (You can delete any place key, they don't need to be in 0 – 9 order.)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\open find\adminaddedplaces
Key names: Place0 through Place9
String name: name
Data value: enter the desired display name
String name: path
Data value: folder path
Office 2010 Places Bar Registry keys
The procedure is the same for Office 2010 places bar, however, the registry path is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0
A sample registry file for Office 2010 is availavle for download at places bar for Office 2010.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\office\14.0\common\open find\adminaddedplaces
Key names: Place0 through Place9
String name: name
Data value: enter the desired display name
String name: path
Data value: folder path
Group Policy Editor
If you want to use Group Policy, you need to install the Group Policy templates. Open the Group Policy editor and browse to Microsoft Office [version], click on File Open/Save Dialog then Places Bar Locations. Edit each places bar location as needed.
