I am creating a template I'm creating to link to a total of five other Excel
2003 spreadsheet files. Adding it up, it's a total of 1446 external cell
references per source file.

When I select "Edit", "Links", and "Change Source" to change the source file
for four of the files, all of the links are updated. When it comes to the
fifth file, it does not update them all. It only updates a few at a time, so
I have to "Change source" several (I did not count, but it had to have been
more than 30 or 40) times before the all of the links would be updated to the
new source.

It seems to me that I reached some sort of limit on the number of external
links that Excel can manage. Is there such a limit? If so, how can I work
around it so I don't have to click "Change source" for ten minutes straight?

If not, does anyone have any ideas on what might cause the "Change source"
to fail like this?

Hi,

The help system doesn't specify the number of linked workbooks, but it does
state that the number of linked sheets is limited by available memory.

You may be running into a memory problem.

This might help - do the change source once and then choose Open Source.
When open the updates may occur faster.

--
Thanks,
Shane Devenshire


"Thomas McLain" wrote:

> I am creating a template I'm creating to link to a total of five other Excel
> 2003 spreadsheet files. Adding it up, it's a total of 1446 external cell
> references per source file.
>
> When I select "Edit", "Links", and "Change Source" to change the source file
> for four of the files, all of the links are updated. When it comes to the
> fifth file, it does not update them all. It only updates a few at a time, so
> I have to "Change source" several (I did not count, but it had to have been
> more than 30 or 40) times before the all of the links would be updated to the
> new source.
>
> It seems to me that I reached some sort of limit on the number of external
> links that Excel can manage. Is there such a limit? If so, how can I work
> around it so I don't have to click "Change source" for ten minutes straight?
>
> If not, does anyone have any ideas on what might cause the "Change source"
> to fail like this?

Thank you. The problem seems to disappear if the linked workbook is open.
Because I can't necessarily control user behavior, would there be any way to
increase the allocated memory without opening the source files?


"ShaneDevenshire" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> The help system doesn't specify the number of linked workbooks, but it does
> state that the number of linked sheets is limited by available memory.
>
> You may be running into a memory problem.
>
> This might help - do the change source once and then choose Open Source.
> When open the updates may occur faster.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Shane Devenshire
>
>
> "Thomas McLain" wrote:
>
> > I am creating a template I'm creating to link to a total of five other Excel
> > 2003 spreadsheet files. Adding it up, it's a total of 1446 external cell
> > references per source file.
> >
> > When I select "Edit", "Links", and "Change Source" to change the source file
> > for four of the files, all of the links are updated. When it comes to the
> > fifth file, it does not update them all. It only updates a few at a time, so
> > I have to "Change source" several (I did not count, but it had to have been
> > more than 30 or 40) times before the all of the links would be updated to the
> > new source.
> >
> > It seems to me that I reached some sort of limit on the number of external
> > links that Excel can manage. Is there such a limit? If so, how can I work
> > around it so I don't have to click "Change source" for ten minutes straight?
> >
> > If not, does anyone have any ideas on what might cause the "Change source"
> > to fail like this?