Solved How do I change default save locations in Windows 8.1

First and foremost, I do not want to disable OneDrive; I just want to make it behave.

I have an external hard drive that I save all my data to; however, to save to it in Windows 8.1 is a virtual nightmare. As you can see from the clip, OneDrive is the default selection, with Computer and Add a Place supposedly available.



However, when I click on Ad a Place, I get:



Which isn't helpful at all.

What I would like to see as a choice is my external hard drive, but after searching diligently, I can find no way to make my external hard drive the default location.

Thanks in advance for any help given.

I don't know how I managed to do this, but I didn't intend for the large snips to show up. I attempted to delete the message but couldn't find a way to do that.

So, I guess I'm stuck with an ugly help question.

Sorry guys and gals.

If you go to edit post there should be a delete post option right up at the top. I've done it a couple of times.

Do you mean this? http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/31690-onedrive-save-documents-default-windows-8-1-a.html

adamf said:

Do you mean this? http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/31690-onedrive-save-documents-default-windows-8-1-a.html

Click to expand...

No, Adam, I don't want to save to OneDrive/SkyDrive. I want to save to my External Drive, which is G:\. I have been able to go into MS Office Options and tell it to save to G:\Documents, but it wants to show me every other place I've saved within Documents, but will not let me choose which folder in Documents to save to.

Thanks for trying, though. It's appreciated.

alphanumeric said:

If you go to edit post there should be a delete post option right up at the top. I've done it a couple of times.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Alpha, I thought I'd seen that there too, but it's not there on this post. Oh, well, so I made a boo boo. Guess that's just my most recent one.

Edit: I thought it might be that only original posts weren't delete-able, but this one doesn't seem . . . well, duhhh, there it is, right at the top like you said!

I think I'll leave well enough alone, though, since Adam's already tried to help me.

I'm not sure if you can do it generically but if you turn off saving to skydrive by default you can normally choose places by application - for example this is my default for Word.

EDIT - and Excel - defaulting to Z drive

Thanks, Adam. That solved it.

It seems that in Word, I have to browse to get to the folder I want to save in, while Excel allows me to just type the folder's location.

That's the place I had been to in Word, but typing in the location didn't help . . .

Thanks again.

Wynona, Word has settings also. Go to the File tab > Options.

HippsieGypsie said:

Wynona, Word has settings also. Go to the File tab > Options.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Hippsie, that's where I landed when I was trying to do it on my own without any help. If I'd just hit browse, and drilled down to it, things would have worked, but, well, nobody ever accused me of doing things the easy way.

Thanks!

Edwin said:

Not sure about 'what' you're trying to save, but...

Click to expand...

Ooohhhhhhhh, another spot in Windows 8.1 I hadn't discovered. I'll look at that too, since I save from things other than Microsoft Office.

Thanks!

Wynona said:

alphanumeric said:

If you go to edit post there should be a delete post option right up at the top. I've done it a couple of times.

Click to expand...

Yeah, Alpha, I thought I'd seen that there too, but it's not there on this post. Oh, well, so I made a boo boo. Guess that's just my most recent one.

Edit: I thought it might be that only original posts weren't delete-able, but this one doesn't seem . . . well, duhhh, there it is, right at the top like you said!

I think I'll leave well enough alone, though, since Adam's already tried to help me.

Click to expand...

It might be that you can't delete the first post in a thread that you yourself started, an admin would know.

Wynona said:

Thanks, Adam. That solved it.

It seems that in Word, I have to browse to get to the folder I want to save in, while Excel allows me to just type the folder's location.

That's the place I had been to in Word, but typing in the location didn't help . . .

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

What is odd (and this still is not a generic solution - still only for office) is that the drive and directory has to exist. You can't state "G:\Wynona\Word" for example if the directory doesn't exist. Perhaps with Office 2013 it is different but with 2010 it has to exist.

adamf said:

Wynona said:

Thanks, Adam. That solved it.

It seems that in Word, I have to browse to get to the folder I want to save in, while Excel allows me to just type the folder's location.

That's the place I had been to in Word, but typing in the location didn't help . . .

Thanks again.

Click to expand...

What is odd (and this still is not a generic solution - still only for office) is that the drive and directory has to exist. You can't state "G:\Wynona\Word" for example if the directory doesn't exist. Perhaps with Office 2013 it is different but with 2010 it has to exist.

Click to expand...

Yeah, a lot of Microsoft Office is odd . . . G:\ already exists (my external drive), but typing in the path didn't work, while drilling down through "browse" did.

Also, it's odd that OSes prior to Windows 8 would find the directory even if Office couldn't. But I believe that Windows 7 (gonna check this out on my Windows 7 lappy) and Office 2010 would have found the directory I pointed to.