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You receive a message when you try to open a Microsoft Excel workbook: "This workbook contains one or more links that cannot be updated"


View products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

When you try to open a Microsoft Excel workbook, you may receive a message that resembles one of the following messages, depending on the version of Excel that you are running.

Microsoft Office Excel 2007

Security Warning Automatic update of links has been disabled.
If you click Options, click Enable this content, and then click OK, you receive the following message:
Excel cannot update one or more links in this workbook. To update the links, open all the link source files (click Edit Links on the Data tab). To be sure all calculations are updated, press F9.
To determine the unique number that is associated with the message that you receive, press CTRL+SHIFT+I. The following number appears in the lower-right corner of this message:
101006
When you click OK, you then receive the following message:
This workbook contains one or more links that cannot be updated.

* To change the source of links, or attempt to update values again, click Edit Links.
* To leave the links as is, click Continue.
To determine the unique number that is associated with the message that you receive, press CTRL+SHIFT+I. The following number appears in the lower-right corner of this message:
101120

Microsoft Office Excel 2003

This workbook contains links to other data sources.
* If you update the links, Excel attempts to retrieve the latest data.
* If you don't update, Excel uses the previous information.
If you click Update, you receive the following error message:
This workbook contains one or more links that cannot be updated.
* To change the source of links, or attempt to update values again, click Edit Links.
* To open the workbook as is, click Continue.

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Cause

This issue may occur if the workbook that you want to open has links to a closed workbook that is saved in the HTML file format.

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Workaround

To work around this issue, open the HTML file that the workbook is linked to before you try to open the workbook that contains the links.

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More information

Excel cannot update links from a workbook that is saved in HTML file format if that workbook is closed. Excel updates the links correctly only if the link source file is already opened.

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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Keywords: KB813977, kberrmsg, kbbug, kbexpertisebeginner, kbofficealertid

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Article Info
Article ID : 813977
Revision : 4
Created on : 9/19/2011
Published on : 9/19/2011
Exists online : False
Views : 266