Word 2007 slow to open when network not accessible

[BruceBrad]

I have a document with many links to excel spreadsheets. When I take it home
to work on my home PC it is often slow to open. More specifically:

- If my home PC is disconnected from the network it opens fine.
- If I have my home PC connected to my office network via VPN it opens
slowly (it seems to be connecting back to the office files)
- If I have the home PC connected to the home network it opens slowly or
sometimes not at all - it seems to be trying to contact the office network.

I have removed all the \a switches from my link fields, and have the 'update
automatic links at open box cleared'.

Is there a way to stop it trying to find the linked files (without removing
the links)?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Make sure that you have the printer driver installed locally. It also helps
to have the templates installed locally.

 

[BruceBrad]

Make sure that you have the printer driver installed locally. It also helps

to have the templates installed locally.

Have that (at least I think the template is the same). Some more info: When
I try to open the document, the status bar (bottom-left) says "Contacting
[UNC file reference] for information. Press esc to cancel" where [UNC file
reference] appears to be a reference to one of my files on my office server
(I can't see the full reference).

As far as I can tell, all the links to external files are set to manually
update, so I can't see why it is doing this. I've even tried setting them to
'lock' status, but this seems to make no difference.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

In earlier versions, there's a check box on the General tab of Tools |
Options to "Update automatic links at open." If you can find this setting in
Office Button | Word Options and disable it, that might help. That, of
course, may be what you meant by "the links to external files are set to
manually update." If locking the fields doesn't help, either, though, then
there must be something else in the document that is causing it to look for
the server.

Make sure that you have the printer driver installed locally. It also helps
to have the templates installed locally.

Have that (at least I think the template is the same). Some more info: When
I try to open the document, the status bar (bottom-left) says "Contacting
[UNC file reference] for information. Press esc to cancel" where [UNC file
reference] appears to be a reference to one of my files on my office server
(I can't see the full reference).

As far as I can tell, all the links to external files are set to manually
update, so I can't see why it is doing this. I've even tried setting them to
'lock' status, but this seems to make no difference.

 

[BruceBrad]

Office Button | Word Options and disable it, that might help. That, of

course, may be what you meant by "the links to external files are set to
manually update." If locking the fields doesn't help, either, though, then
there must be something else in the document that is causing it to look for
the server.

Yes, I have already disabled the corresponding 2007 option. After looking at
the open files monitor on the fileserver, it looks as if the document is
still trying to open the spreadsheets as it opens (it then closes them).

 

[BruceBrad]

Interestingly, if I save the document in compatibility (2003) format, I don't
get this problem. I'll stick with this for now.