Places bar trouble in Xp home

Forgive me if this was previously addressed, but search did not work for me.

I wanted to alter the OEM choices for the places bar in the Save As dialog box. I found that the gpedit.msc is not natively available in the home edition, but I found a site that taught me how to download the needed files, and where they are copied to in the system 32 and group policy files.

I was then able to open the gp interface and enable the places bar choices, apply, and ok.

I rebooted and tried it out.

When I opened the save as dialog box, there were all the old choices.

GP interface says enabled, so I am a little confused about what might be holding the changes back that I placed in the five location boxes. All are valid file locations from the address bar seen at the top when accessing those folders.

Anyone have a direction to go in?

By the way, I also downloaded Powertoys Tweak UI and that did not change the choices, either.

 

I have used TweakUI with XP Home SP3 for setting Custom places bar and it has worked OK.

This is the latest version for Windows XP: Microsoft Releases New TweakUI 2.10 for Windows XP and Server 2003

The dialog notes that this is a per user setting.

 

I had the most recent Tweak UI version, but I uninstalled and reinstalled it anyway.

No joy.

I'm sure that this group of folks can help me find the answer, so I'd like you to encourage others you know here on the site to visit this thread and help me find a solution.

More background:

I regularly run scannow to make sure my OE files are there and correct, and I use registry mechanic to keep the loose ands at bay. Malwarebytes and Avira are the most used tools, and CCleaner about once a month.

I have java disabled due to the recent news of vulnerability.

 

I have attached a zip of two word docs I used to save a couple of screenshots, one of the group policy interface and one of the save as dialog box, showing the places bar as it remains in its unchanged state.

I can post more shots if it will help get this resolved. Thanks

 

Okay. I think I found the answer.

Apparently, the Group Policies editor does not affect anything but the main operating system.

And, no other MS program will follow its dictates. This is the place where my Apple friends laugh at me. I'm not going to tell them about this.

If you look at the screenshot I posted, you will see that I was saving docs in WORD.

Apparently, Word has it's own method of customizing the Save As and Open dialog boxes. Of course, this info is somewhat hidden. I had to do some searching to find it. And, it has some signature stubbornness that is part of the MS we all know and love. For example, you can't get rid of the default choices for the places bar in Word. You can only add places. To see them, you have to take an extra step and right click on them repeatedly to move them up to the top of the list, which is the default display when the box is opened. Nice.

I hope this is a help to the many users who just don't see any real upside to spending money to upgrade to the latest and greatest operating system, and want to stick with Xp because we need very little that Vista or 7 or 8 have to offer.

Maybe the places bar would be one item to put on the list for a OS upgrade, but that's only one item, and not enough for me.