I just set a GPO for the Shared Themes Path for the entire Office 2007 and 2010 suite using the Group Policy: User Policy --> Administrative Templates --> Microsoft Office 2007 System --> Shared paths --> Shared themes path
. And the same for Office 2010.
I can see that the settings are applied if I check each Office application. Also, the registry shows these settings as well. But the themes aren't visible when I try applying them using the Design tab. Why is this?
Now, what I just discovered was that somehow, the Document Themes folder is created in the Workgroup folder. Strangely enough, if I copy the theme there, it shows up in all of the applications! Why? I haven't even set that particular location at all. And yes, I'm really sure. Also, the folder that is automatically created in the Workgroup folder is called "Document Themes", while the path I specified via the GPO is "Themes".
Strange?
Also, I noticed that it's actually the Office application themselves that actually create these folders as soon as I open or close on of the Office applications. But not only in the Workgroup folder but also the User folder. Really strange.
Has anyone any experience with this? I mean, I could just NOT set the property at all and just let the themes be in the users profile, as it is by default. But I think it's a messy file path to that location.
Asked the question at Microsoft's forums. Seems like a bug really. And surprisingly they don't know about it, it seems. Strange since Office 2007 has been out for a really long time..
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeitpro/thread/39fd48e6-d4fc-4336-976d-dab5b4032dde