Upgrading to Excel 2007, but heavy user of "links"

[jdravens]

Hi,
My Company exclusively uses Office 2003, but I was recently cleared to use Excel 2007 due to compatibility issues with vendors. I am a heavy user of links between excel files and from excel files to powerpoint and Word.

I am not worried about saving files in .doc/.xls form to remain compatible for 2003 users, but my concern is that the change may compromise the links between files in our shared drive for myself or other users.

Am I just paranoid? Has anyone had success using 2007 while everyone else was using 2003 with links functioning correctly?

 

[xenou]

I don't know the official answer. Just testing this out quickly I find I cannot link an .xls to an .xlsx (or, the links cannot update unless the source workbook is opened). I'm not sure - is that the expected behavior? BTW I have seen problems reported in some posts here but that may nothing.

In short - caution. Did you find anything else out yourself?

 

[shemayisroel]

Am I just paranoid? Has anyone had success using 2007 while everyone else was using 2003 with links functioning correctly?

Hi & Welcome,

The company I work for had the same problem, all employees are on 2003 then some of the mgmt group started using 2007. We had all sorts of problem with this and linking. So what we decided was for all to stay on 2003, have 2007 as on option via remote access (for users to open up 2007 files from clients)

Problem gone away

 

[jdravens]

Wow, thanks for the feedback. Will definitely make sure to use shem's "remote access" approach if I end up getting 2007 at all. Now I just have to figure out what that means!

 

[shemayisroel]

Wow, thanks for the feedback. Will definitely make sure to use shem's "remote access" approach if I end up getting 2007 at all. Now I just have to figure out what that means!

There are many remote access clients you could use, speak to your IT guys they should be able to direct you in the right direction.

The beauty of the remote access is you would have 2003 installed on your local PC, this would be your primary office package of choice. However if you want to use 2007, you log into a remote access platform via IE, select 2007 and open and use 2007 like you would if it was on your local PC. When you've had enough of 2007, close down the application and continue as normal...