Auto update in Excel 2002

When opening a spreadsheet that was created in an older
format of Excel ( i.e. 97), 2002 automatically updates
live links. I do not want 2002 to update my links when I
tell it not to, but it does it anyway. My local IT group
says there is no way around this, but I find it difficult
to believe that Microsoft would completely override my
direct request to not update my links. Does anyone know
how to reconfigure Excel 2002 so as to not update live
links in an older formatted spreadsheet? I have tried
changing my calculation settings to manual, but that
didn't stop it.

Thanks