"Cannot access directory" error when you change the default save location in Excel 2016

This article was written by Warren Rath, Support Escalation Engineer.

Symptoms

When you try to change the default save location to a SharePoint location in Microsoft Excel 2016 through the Default local file location setting, you receive the following error message:

Cause

For some unknown reasons, some Office 2016 installations can't create a necessary directory.

Workaround

To work around this issue, add the following directory to the systems that are experiencing this issue:

C:\Users\userid\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\URL\

Note

You need to change the userid to a real user ID when you add this directory.