Has anyone else observed the anomaly of NOT being able to save a file to a
folder because of the folder name syntax?

In our company, we adopted a convention, many years ago, of using square
brackets, such as "[" and "]", when naming certain hard disk folders. For
example, "[ System ]" or "[ Dump ]" or "[ Shared ]" or "[ General ]" or "[
Library ]".

This convention allowed us to give certain folders visual precedence by
displaying them at the top of the directory listing when viewed in Windows
Explorer and in application 'Open' dialogs. The square brackets also set
the name visually apart. This convention also helped remove folders that
would have otherwise been alphabetically interspersed amongst other
unrelated folders. As such, the remaining folders, of a similar relation,
were also kept together.

This convention is perfectly legal within Windows. The naming of folders,
using the square brackets, does not generate any error messages or syntax
corrections. However, it does create a problem when trying to save new
Excel worksheets to such a folder! A new worksheet CANNOT be saved to any
folder with a pathname that includes square brackets.

Another irony is that you can open an existing worksheet form such a folder
and save it, after making changes, but you cannot save a new or 'Save As'
worksheet in any such location. I suspect this relates somehow to the Excel
convention of referencing cells in another worksheet by enclosing the
worksheet name in square brackets.

Either way, it has been a serious problem for us because this hard disk
folder naming convention is so widespread in our small company. FIRST, it
is extremely frustrating. SECOND, Excel should allow access to any file
saved in a folder created following proper Windows Vista naming conventions.
THIRD, we certainly consider this a BUG, or at best, a very serious
oversight by Microsoft. FOURTH, it should be an embarrassment that a user
cannot save a Microsoft application file to a Microsoft operating system
folder, especially when they have followed proper naming conventions.
FIFTH, we fear this could also happen if the users use other special
characters as part of their naming convention.

Has anyone noticed this problem and what is the chance of Microsoft
correcting this issue?