I have read previous threads on this, here and elsewhere, and nothing works. I'll try to be as explicit as possible about the problem. I'm using Office 365 on Windows 11 Pro:



- this is a Word file with images linked from Excel files in the same folder

- the links are created with Paste Special > Link > Bitmap

- the behavior I want is that when I open the file, **nothing happens** with these links until I update them manually.

- what happens instead is that whenever I open this Word file, I have to go through 30 seconds of hassle as Word opens Excel, opens the relevant Excel files, hides them in Excel (why??) and generates further Excel "update" dialogs to click through (interestingly these dialogs don't come up when I open the Excel files directly)

I have set every image to "manual" updates in the links dialog. I have unchecked "update automatic links at open" in the options dialog. I have found and switched the DontUpdateLinks registry key. Nothing seems to have an effect.

Is there no hope? : )