Problem with multiple word files simultaneous link updates in office 2024

Question

On my old PC i have created an excel file with data. I also have several doc and docx files on Word, that contain many links to the excel file. Normally on my old PC with win 10 and office 2021 Professional Plus, for each of my projects i fill the project data in the excel file. After that I open the excel file, open the first word file and when it asks i click to update links. As soon as the update link bar at the bottom taskbar finishes i open the second word file, again update links in it and then the third file and so on. After that i go into the opened excel file and click save as - to another location (my current project folder). This triggers in all open word files the system to begin update of all links paths. I wait some time (about 10 minutes) the update to finish and then I save as every word file in the project folder. This way worked for me i had all the word files with updated links, linking to the new excel file for the current project. I moved to a new PC and recently installed windows 11 pro with Office 2024 LTSC. I transferred my word and excel files to a folder with the same name and path. And when i tried to do the same thing to create excel and word files for my new projects, it starts the procedure of updating links, but about half of the link paths finally are not updated in my word files! Please tell me why it does not work and how to fix it. When i try with opening and updating and saving only 1 single word file, it works and updates all the link paths. But with multiple simultaneous word files it fails.
Using the process the way i used to is mandatory for me.

Answer 1

Hi, Atanas Dimitrov

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

What you are seeing is consistent with a change in how Word handles OLE link refresh when several documents are open at once, the updates can run “out of order” and some links never complete unless they are forced to refresh.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

After Excel “Save As”, force Word to repoint links (most reliable)

In each open Word file go to File > Info > Edit Links to Files, select all links, then Change Source and pick the newly saved Excel file in your project folder. This bypasses the background auto-update and explicitly rewrites the source path for every link.

Force a full refresh of fields after the path change

Still in each Word document, press Ctrl+A (select all) then F9 to update fields. This is a quick way to “pull” the latest data and link targets again when Word’s automatic update misses some items.

Stop Word from auto-updating links while you are mid-workflow

In Word: File > Options > Advanced > General, turn off Update automatic links at open. Then you control exactly when updates happen (via Edit Links or Ctrl+A then F9), which reduces partial updates when multiple documents are open.

Remove security friction that can silently block some updates

Add your template folder and project folder as Trusted Locations (and enable subfolders if used). Word blocks external content by default in some cases, and this can interfere with linked content updating cleanly.

Make sure Office LTSC 2024 is fully patched

LTSC 2024 receives monthly quality and stability updates, and it is worth updating before deeper troubleshooting because link-handling issues can be build-specific.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you need further assistance.

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