Superb find Dave. Worked a treat. I had to slightly modify the registry path
from:-

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicĀ*rosoft\Office\9.0\Excel\OptionĀ*s

....to...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicĀ*rosoft\Office\11.0\Excel\OptionĀ*s

....since it was a problem between excel 2002 and 2003 and the path that this
google article pointed to was to do with a problem between Excel 9x and Excel
2000 i believe.

Anyway, i created the DWORD entry as shown below in the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MicĀ*rosoft\Office\11.0\Excel\OptionĀ*s registry
path and tested the problem and it sorted it completely.

create a new DWORD item named: FullCalcOnLoadOldFile
Leave its value at the default of 0.

Thanks again for your help. It was very much appreciated.

"Jamie" wrote:

> Thanks Dave. I'll give it a whirl. *fingers crossed*
>
> It sounds like a similar situation as the sheet is being emailed over from a
> 2002 copy of excel and the problem is being experienced on any 2003 excel
> users.
>
> i'll update this discussion with the result of this reg tweak.
>
> Thanks again
>
> "Dave Peterson" wrote:
>
> > Jim Rech posted a registry tweak:
> > http://groups.google.com/groups?thre...TNGP11.phx.gbl
> >
> > Maybe it'll work for you.
> >
> > Jamie wrote:
> > >
> > > Firstly, apologies if this question is not quite appropriate for this
> > > discussion group but it seemed the nearest suitable one.
> > >
> > > Secondly, this excel problem. I have a spreadsheet which contains links. It
> > > is often emailed from one user to others for reviewing. They would normally
> > > click "Don't Update" so as to review the previously linked informations.
> > > However, it appears that unlike Excel 2002, when you open this spreadsheet
> > > with Excel 2003 and get presented with the Update or Don't Update links
> > > option, it doesn't matter which option you choose, Excel 2003 always tries to
> > > update the links which leaves you with a sheet full of #N/A's rather than the
> > > information previously contained within the sheet. Doing the same process on
> > > a machine with Excel 2002 (i.e. pressing the Don't Update option) leaves you
> > > with all the previously known information left in the spreadsheet rather than
> > > the #N/A's.
> > >
> > > I was wondering if anyone could shed any light on this as its a little
> > > annoying for the users i support as we are in an office with a mix of Excel
> > > 2002 and 2003.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dave Peterson
> >