Microsoft KB Archive/906521

= Changes to the functionality of the My Shapes folder in Visio after Visio 2003 Service Pack 2 or a later version of Visio is installed =

Article ID: 906521

Article Last Modified on 6/13/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007
 * Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007
 * Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2003
 * Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2003

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Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure that you back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry



INTRODUCTION
Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and later versions of Visio contain changes to the functionality of the &quot;&quot;My Shapes&quot;&quot; folder. This article describes the changes.

For more information about Visio 2003 Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

887622 Description of Visio 2003 Service Pack 2



MORE INFORMATION
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

The &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder
By default, when you first start Visio after you install the program, the path of the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is defined as follows:

\My Documents\My Shapes

Note In this path,  indicates the path of the user profile that contains the My Documents folder.

The path of the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is stored in the MyShapesPath string value of one of the following registry subkeys.

Microsoft Office Visio 2003
Note If you want to prevent the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder from being created, you can set a nonexistent path in the MyShapesPath string value.

When you move, delete, or rename the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder
If you use Microsoft Windows Explorer to move, to delete, or to rename the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder and then you start Visio, the following actions occur:
 * The &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is not automatically re-created when you start Visio. The path that was originally set in the MyShapesPath string value in the registry remains. If the folder that the MyShapesPath string value points to does not exist, the MyShapesPath string value becomes a nonexistent path. The presence of a nonexistent path is what instructs Visio not to re-create the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder.
 * If a nonexistent path is present in the MyShapesPath string value in the registry, the &quot;My Documents&quot; folder is the default folder when you click Open on the File menu and when you click Save As on the File menu.

Additionally, the following actions occur:
 * If you delete the path in the MyShapesPath string value in the registry but you do not delete, move, or rename the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder, Visio writes the MyShapesPath string with the default value back into the registry the next time that you start Visio.
 * If you delete the path in the MyShapesPath string value in the registry and you delete, move, or rename the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder, Visio writes the MyShapesPath string with the default value back into the registry and re-creates the &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder the next time that you start Visio.

When you use an Office language pack
When you first start Visio together with an Office language pack, the following actions occur:
 * A single &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is created by using the localized folder name that is based on the installed language pack.
 * When you start Visio together with another language, an additional &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is not created. The created &quot;My Shapes&quot; folder is used for all other languages.

Additional query words: visio2003 visio2k3 vso2003 vso2k3 visio2003sp2 visio2k3sp2 vso2003sp2 vso2k3sp2

Keywords: kbexpertisebeginner kbhowto kbinfo KB906521

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