Value or purpose of ChDir

I have never needed to use ChDir before a command like Workbooks.Open

I gave a macro that worked perfectly for me to my husband and his won't work without the ChDir.

Where I work there are public drives on the server, like K, M, N, Q.
If I want to open a file on a network drive, I use

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Where he works he "maps a drive" (whatever that means) and this long path becomes "X:\MyWorkbook.xls"
(now the path on somebpdy elses PC wouldn't be X:\..., it would have to be mapped and it would be something else, like W:\....... why IDK ???)
In order to open the file from his PC the code must read

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why do I need the ChDir for him but not me?
Is all the code I ever wrote "wrong" because it doesn't include ChDir?

Hi Carsto,

with local drives like C: or D: the path to a file is pretty straightforward.

If you want to access a folder on a networked file server, then this is easiest to do if you map the network folder as a drive. Now, on the file server, there is a C: drive, and it has several folders. From the file server perspective, the complete path to the file may be

C:\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4\file.xls

Depending on how the network admin allows you to map the drive, you can have different "entry points" into the path above. Drive K: could be

File Server C:\folder1\

Then the path to your file would be

K:\folder2\folder3\folder4\file.xls

Or, the network admin may offer an entry point deeper in the path, say drive W: is mapped to

File Server C:\folder1\folder2\folder3

In that case, from a user's perspective, the path to the file would be

W:\folder4\file.xls

It seems that in your husband's case, the drive mapping leads directly to the innermost folder, so his drive X: is mapped to

File Server C:\folder1\folder2\folder3\folder4

So he can find the file directly at

X:\file.xls

because the X: already includes the rest of the full server path.

Does that make it any clearer?

If he has the X: drive already mapped, I don't really see a reason for the Chdir, since you are specifying the path to the file.

I'm not a VBA buff. Maybe someone else can help. I'm calling in the cavalry. Hang in there.

Hello carsto,

The network drive may or may not be mapped automatically when the user logs on. It depends on how it has been setup. The ChDir statement will change the working directory, the directory you are currently in, to the directory you specify. This allows you to override the system default for the working directory.

Since you don't have a mapped drive, there is no need to change your working directory. In the case of your husband, the directory exits on a network server, not his computer. Since this directory doesn't exist on his computer, we force the system to look on the network drive by using ChDir.