Quick Access Toolbar in Office 2007 and Roaming Profiles

In Office 2007, we have the possibility to personalize our Quick Access Toolbar (extension: qat). Every modification, that differs from the default Quick Access Toolbar, will be saved in the following directory C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office (where %username% must be replaced by your current login name)

All customizations are saved in a QAT-file. Powerpoint, Excel, Word, and Outlook keep individual QAT-files for themselves, as shown in the following table:

When you use roaming profiles, the Quick Access Toolbar modifications are gone when logging out en logging on again. The folder Local Settings (which contains your QAT file) is not copied to the server when you log out, because the Local Settings folder is no part of your roaming profile. In addition, another Group Policy setting provides the deletion of your local profile on the computer. The result is: when you log on again, the Quick Access Toolbar file isn’t on the server (because it is not part of your roaming profile), and it isn’t on your desktop either (because a policy enables a deletion of your local profile).

There isn’t a possibility to change the location of your Quick Access Toolbar file of Office 2007, according to Microsoft. I’ve been doing some search in the registry, but I couldn’t find a location in the registry either.

A possible solution could be a script that copies the QAT files to a file server when you log off, and copies the files back again to the local C:\ drive when you logon. On the other hand, this slows down your logon again, which may cause (more) complains from users.

After all, to me, there only seems one possibility left: keep the roaming profiles undeleted on the desktops. This can be done with a Group Policy setting. For more information, visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/274152
It may cause some disk space trouble, especially when you have a small C:\ partition, and a lot of people log on to different computers with large profiles.