"Unable to Read File" Error Message When You Open an Excel Workbook That Contains Links to Other Excel Workbooks

When you open a workbook in Excel, and the workbook contains links to other Excel workbooks that are generated when a report in Access is exported to Excel, you may receive the following error message when you update the links in the workbook:

To work around this problem, open all the linked Excel workbooks before you open the workbook that contains the links.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Steps to Reproduce the Behavior

1. Start Microsoft Access.
2. Open the Northwind.mdb sample database.
3. In the database window, under Objects, click Reports.
4. In the right pane, right-click the Customer Labels report, and then click Export.
5. In the Export Report 'Customer Labels' To dialog box, select one of the following from the Save as type list:
   • If you are using Microsoft Access 2002, select Microsoft Excel 97-2002 (*.xls).
   • If you are using Microsoft Office Access 2003, select Microsoft Excel 97-2003 (*.xls).
6. Click Export.
7. Start Excel, and then create a new workbook.
8. Link a cell in the workbook to the exported Excel workbook.
   
   For example, if the exported Excel workbook is stored in C:\, type the following in the Formula Bar field that corresponds to the cell that is to be linked in the new Excel workbook:
   ='C:\[Customer Labels.xls]Customer Labels'!D4
9. Save the Excel workbook as TestBook.xls.
10. Open the TestBook.xls file.
11. In the Update the links in the Excel workbook dialog box, click Update.