Changing Excel 2010 default save folder location

Hi folks, got a question re: Excel 2010, running on win7 Pro 32-bit (it's not the machine in my stats).

I looked up tutorials to change the default save folder location for MS Office, and pretty much all of them reference MS Word 2010. Like for example the one in this forum, MS Office Word : Set Default Save Location -- which works fine when I try it, no problem with Word 2010. However, Excel 2010 is being a **** and refuses to following spec.

Consider:
When I click on File -> Options, then navigate to the "Save" tab, it displays a screen similar to the equivalent one in Word... except that the "Browse" button to change the folders is missing.



No big deal, plus the default file location is already pointing to my user folder: that's fine. However, when I go to save or save-as, this is what pops up:



Yea-- no. Why is Excel showing libraries? I don't want to use libraries. I don't want to see libraries. I've used the registry hack from this forum to remove libraries from showing up in the left pane of Explorer.

How do I get Excel to use my documents folder as the default?

After changing the location in the Excel Options --> Save tab... did you reboot?

No, I didn't change the folder; it was already pointing to my documents folder. Haven't rebooted, will try that in a sec - gotta wait for a download to finish.

Edit:
Nope, still opens Libraries first. Tried changing the folder to C:\; huh, that worked, didn't have to reboot. Restarted Excel, yep, save-as goes to C:\. Changed it to another folder, also worked.

Changed it to my documents folder - blam, back to the Library. Changed it to another folder, it goes to that folder. Oookay...

Well, I can accept that - I don't mind pointing Excel elsewhere (my original problem is solved). This however still leaves the fact that if you point it to your user document folder, Excel will automatically jump to the library.

One small point - in your illustration it states "Save as" Excel 97-2003 (*.xls).

Maybe that was intentional, but Excel 2010 is usually the first in the list, Excel Workbook (*.xlsx).

Yes, that was intentionally changed previously - many of the people I liaise with have older versions of MS Office.

I see this thread is now marked as solved, but I do not see where the OP states it is fixed... WHY???

Sorry for the confusion, but in my second post I mentioned that I am able to get Excel to use a different folder. That is an acceptable solution for me hence I marked my thread solved.

However it doesn't work (still goes to Libraries) if I point it at my user documents folder. As long as you point it elsewhere, Excel will obey you.