I was having the same problem.
The problem: seems to be that the Auto recovery for Excel is hard coded
within the registry. and it tries to create a backup to a folder that could
have been moved or removed.

The Solution: Close your Excel Application
do a regedit search for the field AutoRecoverPath
If you had office xp before hand this will show up First.
Change the Value of the Autorecoverpath to a directory that you know is
there.
Close Regedit and retry Excel you should be able to access the options now


"DCC" wrote:

In the Tools menu\Options box or window,
If I try to make any changes or even choose a different tab along the top, I
get an error message saying- Can not access directory "F:\All Files:" Which
is the partition the files are stored on but they are few folders below
this.
Using Windows XP Professional + Office 2003. There is only one user that is
an administrator.
Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Douglas