User accounts creating problem

[Tschurin]

This question really involves both Windows XP professional and Excel 2007,
each of which I have installed on my laptop and desktop.

Let’s say that I have a cell in an Excel workbook A linked to a cell in
Excel workbook B. Let’s also say that the two workbook files were created on
my desktop, and that I copy them over to my laptop, which is registered in a
different name. Is it correct that the link between the two cells will now be
broken because the directory paths created by the Windows XP registration are
not exactly the same?

One option is, when workbook A is opened on the laptop, to edit the link by
“changing the source†to the laptop address for workbook B. As I will be
frequently keeping my desktop and laptop in sync, and I have hundreds of
excel files with links, this is not a practical solution, since I would have
to edit the links each time I copied from the desktop to the laptop, or vice
versa.

The more practical options I believe involve Windows XP:
1) Creating a second user account on my laptop with the same name as the
user account on my desktop and copying over the user settings from the first
user account on my laptop.
2) Doing (1) but also deleting the first user account.
3) Reinstalling Windows XP on my laptop and reregistering, this time with
the same user name as that of my desktop.

What are the pros and cons of each of these methods?

Any help on this problem is greatly appreciated,
Geoff

 

[Anteaus]

It depends if these links include a full path, or are relative to the present
location.

As an alternative approach I would suggest creating a driveletter with NET
USE (network) or SUBST (local) and ensuring that this is the same on all
computers. If the links refer to this driveletter then there will be no
relocation problems.

 

[Tschurin]

They apparently are the full path, e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\..... I
create the links by typing an equal sign in the cell of the first Excel
workbook; then clicking on the relevant cell in the second Excel workbook. If
there is a way to create links between two workbooks that doesn’t require a
full path, I’m not aware of it.