Word link paths have always been absolute. This behaviour has nothing to do with the Windows or Office version. Windows XP was no different (though a quirk in more recent versions of Office has allowed links to the same folder to behave relatively).

To edit links in Word file, you can click on File>Edit Links to File (in the lower right of the screen) - or you can add the Edit Links button to the QAT. Alternatively, to see how to implement relative paths in Word, check out the solution I've posted at: http://windowssecrets.com/forums/sho...External-Files. For Excel links you'll need the macro solution.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]