I assume you are using Drupal 6. Are you using core file module or

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filefield. I assume the former since you say nothing about it. Also, it is strange that you want save files outside of your sites/default (or whatever your drupal root is if you are using multisite). I have never tried that myself, but it seems to work. Usually it is sites/default/files I guess. Try to change the file settings (admin/settings/file-system/settings).

Yep, that's right. I use alternate paths all the time; a preferred location being simply 'files'. However one other thing that one should be attentive to for a new site is ensuring that the default upload limits are set correctly and the permissions to upload/view uploaded files are set correctly..

/admin/settings/uploads

/admin/user/permissions#module-upload

Hope this helps!

I'm developing as admin, I believe there's no need to set permissions. sites/default/files is the directory as above but I cannot get the file or image attachment to default to that directory, instead, whether I'm using the server or my home system, it defaults to the home directory of my working computer.

Similarly I can't get it to find pdf or word docs in another directory. Drupal seems fixed to one search path for files and images. I did not want to have all those in the /sites/default/files directory mixed up with images. There's gotta be a way Thank you Roger