Just had a request from a user, who was complaining that everytime that she logs into a computer, she has to customise the Quick Access Toolbar in Word and Excel. (The few buttons to the rights of the Office Button.)
Turns out that the QAT is not stored in the roaming part of the user profile, but the local part. As profiles are deleted when a user logs off, and the user accesses a couple of different computers, the settings were not following her.
When a user customises the QAT, a new file is created in C:\Documents and Setting\%username%\Local Settings\Microsoft\Office\ called word.qat, for Word or excel.qat for Excel.
This default location can be changed by amending a registry entry, after applying a hotfix. The location of the key is:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Toolbars
You need to create a new DWORD value called QuickAccessToolbarRoaming and give it a value of 1.
As this was a user policy, we created an ADM file and deployed the changed using Group Policy. The ADM file contains the following:
CLASS USER
CATEGORY "Office 2007 Quick Access Toolbar" POLICY "Include Quick Access Toolbar in Roaming Profile" KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common\Toolbars" VALUENAME QuickAccessToolbarRoaming VALUEON NUMERIC 1 VALUEOFF NUMERIC 0 END POLICY END CATEGORY
To use this:
- Copy the above code into Notepad
- Save the file with a .adm extension, e.g qat.adm.
- Open Group Policy Management and then the desired GP.
- Right click Administrative Templates -> Add/Remove Templates
- Add in the template that you saved in step 2.
- Go to View –> Filtering and then untick the box labelled Only Show Policy Settings that can be Fully Managed
- Expand ‘Office 2007 Quick Access Toolbar’
- Amend the ‘Include Quick Access Toolbar in Roaming Profile’ setting to Enabled.
For Office 2010 and above a new GPO setting was introduced and can be found at the below GPO location after importing the relevant ADMX files:
“User Config/Policies/Admin Templates/Microsoft Office 2010/Global Options/Customize/Allow roaming of all user customizations”
HI Craig,
The option is working perfectly fine for Office 2007, but now i’m stuck with Office 2010. Do you have any idea how to do it for Office 2010? . I have changed the registry path for 2010 but still no go, can you please help ?
There is now a GPO setting for Office 2010 and newer that can be applied. I have now added details in to the post. You will need to install the Office 2010 ADMX files first though.
and also I can see this message – even after entering the value in registry QuickAccessToolbarRoaming
” This registry setting is not stored in a policies key and thus considered a preference. Therefore if the Group Policy Object that implements this setting is ever removed, this setting will remain ”
Currently we have windows 2008 r2 server with Ms office 2007 Installed , could you please help ?
This is correct. As the GPO setting changes a value outside of the normal ‘Policies’ key in the registry, it does not track the previous value, and therefore this new setting becomes persistent even if the policy is removed. It is an unfortunate side effect of this method, but typically does not cause a problem.
Hi Craig, Thank you so much for the reply, Quick access toolbar is working awesome now
HI, thanks for the information so far, but I’m unable to find this policy in windows 2008 r2 server after performing the filtering, can you please tell me – how to filter and find the policy in windows 2008 r2 server ?
Eagerly waiting for your information.
Best Regards,
Harsha
Make sure that you have imported the ADM template and that you have copied and pasted the ADM definition correctly. Most issues occur because of a typo or the file not being available.
Here’s a trick that worked for me:
1. Find the *.qat files in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office
2. Change the name or each file (excel.qat and word.qat) – I put an X at the end of each name
3. Open Word and/or Excel and customize the Quick Access Toolbar: add commands, etc.
4. When you close each program you’ll find a new .qat file in the C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office folder.
5. When you open each program you’ll now see that the .qat toolbar you customized is saved
Thanks Dee. Always good to hear of other solutions.
Great article, thank you! Also I’ve found that for Office 2010 at least, there’s a group policy for this: “User Config/Policies/Admin Templates/Microsoft Office 2010/Global Options/Customize/Allow roaming of all user customizations” Which allows toolbar customisations and the QAT to roam.
Thanks for the tip on Office 2010
Didn”t get the needed hotfix line, but the GPO works like a charm!
Thanks!
(2 years later :P)
Thanks but where does it store te settings after applying this registry key? does it store the qat files in %appdata% then? or somewhere else?
It stores the files in the same location, but instead of the Local folder, the Roaming folder.
e.g C:\Documents and Setting\%username%\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\
Pour Office 2010, il faut utiliser la valeur “CustomUIRoaming” et non “QuickAccessToolbarRoaming”…
MERCI :D
Merci beaucoup pour cette solution clé en main.
Super!!!!