If you have chosen Advanced Archive Publishing, this setting dictates the root filesystem path for your archives. An absolute path (a path starting with /) is preferred, because it is not dependent on the location of your Movable Type directory; but if you choose to use a relative path, the path should be relative to your Movable Type directory.

Example: /usr/home/melody/www/archives

The rest of the path for each archive file is created in the format specified in the Archive Map file path for each particular type of archive in the archive mapping section of the weblog's publishing settings screen.

If your Archive Root is identical to or underneath (in hierarchy) your Site Root, it is recommended that you do not use Advanced Archive publishing, but instead add the extra path information specified in the Archive Root to the beginning of your Archive Map File Path.

For example, if your Site Root is /usr/home/melody/www and your Archive Root is /usr/home/melody/www/archives, you would add archives/ to the beginning of each of your archive file paths (using the Custom option in the dropdown), and disable Advanced Archive Publishing.