Update Links fails with Excel Bitmaps

[Scott]

Hi:

I have a file with several hundred Excel-linked bitmaps. Once it got to a
certain size, Word XP 2002 started to crash. I inserted the old keys for
BitMapMemory and CacheSize and increased them drastically and Word stopped
crashing, but the update link problem did not go away. All links are manual
update. Most are bitmaps.

When I try to update all the links, no matter how (Edit > Links > mark links

Update Now) or use a VB macro or manually mark them and right-click Update

Link, after a certain number of updates, Word becomes unstable and the link
is permantely broken, displaying Error! Not a Valid Link. The embedded code
is stlll the same and points to a valid link.

I reproduced the problem by creating a test file with the same bitmap
(27Rows X 12Cols) linked to a simple Excel file and copied-pasted a few
hundred times in the document (manual update).. The same problem occurs.

When Word becomes unstable, other applications also start to have problems.
There is plenty of physical memory left of my 1 GB at the time of
instability. Closing Word clears the problem. The only way to update the
links is to do it in steps, closing word in between each step. Looks like a
memory leak.

Does anyone know a fix? Please, this driving me crazy.

Thanks,

Scott