Hi Stephen,
..
Normally you make changes and they will be there the next time you
open Excel, but sometimes things don't seem to go right. I think
if may have to do with how you exit Excel. The toolbars are brought
up when you first open Excel.
When I have extensive changes to make to my toolbars, and all the
macros are in my in my personal.xls file. I open Excel and unhide
my personal.xls file (window, unhide). Make changes to my toolbars
then hide my personal.xls file, and exit Excel.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/toolbars.htm
Also includes emergency recovery if you mess up your menus,
and haven't exited Excel, you can restore toolbars to condition
last time you closed Excel.
The most common means of losing all of your customizations
is to open two instances of Excel. If you do that, close the one
without your customizations first then the one with your customizations,
be sure to save when you close the good one..
Many of the consultants here who write software for clients would
program the addition and removal of a toolbar for an application.
You can get the same benefit for your menus by using John Walkenbach's .
Custom Menus in Excel 97 , Tip 53 "Menu Maker"
http://www.j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip53.htm
It is a spreadsheet set up with the same hierarchical order that
you want for your own menu. It provides a decent method of organizing
your menus on a spreadsheet when first getting used to setting up your own.
Your customizations are saved in your *.xlb file when Excel is closed.
and you should include this file in your backups.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/backup.htm