Bill,

Thank you for replying. It looks like you may have it here.

I want the macro to change updating from automatic to manual in a workbook
after that workbook has been created by an author and closed, but before it
is opened by someone else for purposes of review..

I want the macro to autorun when the workbook is opened by someone other
than the author and change the updating to manual before the links created
by the author are automatically updated.

The sequence is this:

1. The workbooks I am concerned about are created by authors from a template
I give them. Often, the authors link their workbooks to external data
sources.
2. The workbooks submitted by the authors are reviewed by others. Generally,
the data sources that are linked to these workbooks are not submitted with
the workbooks. The data source files are too big.
3. The problem is that when the workbooks are opened by others, they
sometimes forget to answer "No" to the update links prompt.. When this
happens, the data in the workbook can become corrupted (lot's of #REF cell
values, etc.). To eliminate this problem, I want to change the template on
which  these workbooks are based (or manually run the macro on all workbooks
that are submitted) so that any external links created in them by the
authors only update manually.
4. We use Excel 2000 and I see no way of creating links that can be set to
update manually. Automatic updated seems to be wired into Excel 2000.
Edit->:Links has a options for Automatic and Manual updating but the Manual
option is dimmed out -- even in the workbook when the links are created.
4. It would be feasible to manually run the macro I am looking for in all
workbooks when they are submitted by authors to change the updating to
manual.
5. As a last restor, I suppose we could change recalculation to manual but
that would be very inconvenient for most people.

This is the design problem:
 a.  Excel 2000.
 b.  Write a macro stored in a module in the template used to create many
workbooks that can be manually run to switch the updating of external links
created in the workbook to manual.
 c.  While one is at it, it probably would be a good idea to have another
macro for toggling link updating back to automatic.

I know, I know, one solution to the problem is to buy Excel 2003. Not
feasible at this time.

John Wirt

John

I meant here that the workbook has been closed by the person who created it
and the external links.

I want the macro to change the updating to manual before the next person
opens the workbook.

In your code, I do not understand how to dimension the variable, V.   If I
dimension it as an array, the VBA editor complains that "V" is not an array
variable in the first statement. If I omit any dimension statement, VAB
complains "Type Mismatch" on the second statement (as it should).

John