6. Customize the Places Bar in MS Office 2000

When you are opening or saving a document in Office, you'll see some shortcuts on the left side that may or may not be helpful. I have found that customizing these shortcuts is a real time-saver.

Begin by downloading Places.dll. Click the link, choose "Save", and save it to your Desktop or somewhere convenient. After the file downloads, copy it to your Windows\System directory.

1. Click Start, and then click Run.

2. Type the following command line:

Regsvr32 \Places.dll

(for most computers, this will read "Regsvr32 C:\Windows\System\Places.dll" or "Regsvr32 C:\WINNT\System\Places.dll")

Now open any Office application, such as Word. On the Tools menu, you will now find an option entitled "Set Places..."

Note: Microsoft has added the Places bar setting to the registry for Office XP. More info here.