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Error message when you click a hyperlink in an Office 2003 document: "The address of this site is not valid""

Article ID: 890474 - View products that this article applies to.

Error message description

In a Microsoft Office 2003 document, when you click a hyperlink that is supposed to open another document, you may experience the following symptoms:

The document does not open.
You receive the following error message:
The address of this site is not valid. Check the address and try again.

This article helps you fix this problem.

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To fix this problem, install the latest Office 2003 service pack. If you cannot install the latest Office 2003 service pack for some reason, you can obtain a hotfix that will also fix this problem. However, after you install the hotfix, there are some additional steps that you will have to take to fix the problem.

How to obtain the latest service pack

This problem is fixed in Office 2003 Service Pack 2. To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

870924

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870924/ )

How to obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003

After you install Office 2003 Service Pack 2, determine whether the problem is fixed. If it is not fixed, you can try the steps in the "Workaround" section. Or, you can contact support

(http://support.microsoft.com/contactus)

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the Office 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package that is dated November 25, 2004. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

890472

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/890472/ )

Description of the Office 2003 post-Service Pack 1 hotfix package: November 25, 2004

After you install this hotfix, you have to enable the fix. To have us do this for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather do this yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.

Fix it for me

To fix this problem automatically, click the Fix this problem link. Then click Run in the File Download dialog box and follow the steps in this wizard.

Fix this problem
Microsoft Fix it 50080

Note This wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD, and then you can run it on the computer that has the problem.

Now go to the "Did this fix the problem?" section.

Let me fix it myself

Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322756

(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/ )

How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

Exit all Office 2003 programs.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then click to select the following registry subkey:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common
After you select the subkey that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
Type HypAlternateResolveToRel, and then press ENTER.
Right-click HypAlternateResolveToRel, and then click Modify.
In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

Now go to the "Did this fix the problem?" section.

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Did this fix the problem?

Check whether the problem is fixed. If it is fixed, you are finished with this article. If it is not fixed, you can try the steps in the "Workaround" section, or you can contact support

(http://support.microsoft.com/contactus)

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Workaround

If this problem occurs even after you install Office 2003 Service Pack 2 or after you apply the hotfix and registry modification, use one of the following methods to work around this problem.

Method 1: Disable the "Update Links on Save" option

This method prevents Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Word, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint from changing the hyperlink that you created. Additionally, this method prevents possible damage to the link format. The Update Links on Save option is an Office-wide option. For example, if you change the option in Word, the option is automatically changed in Excel and in PowerPoint.

On the Tools menu, click Options.
On the General tab, click Web Options.
On the Files tab, click to clear the Update Links on Save check box, and then click OK.

Note Later files that are saved will not update the hyperlinks during the save operation. Therefore, working hyperlinks will remain in their working format.

Method 2: Manually set the file location

When you create the hyperlink, use the Link to File dialog box to create the hyperlink instead of typing the path.

On the Insert menu, click Hyperlink.
In the Link to box, click Existing File or Web Page.
Click Browse for File.
Type the path of the network share, and then press ENTER to list the contents of that share.
Click the file to which you want to link.
Click OK two times.

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Cause

This problem may occur if all the following conditions are true:

The document that contains the hyperlink was saved in an Office 2003 program.
The document that contains the hyperlink and the document that the hyperlink opens are located on the same server.
The document that contains the hyperlink and the document that the hyperlink opens are located in separate shares on the server.
The hyperlink contains a relative URL.

Notes
- By default, a relative URL for the hyperlink is created when you save the document in Microsoft Office Excel 2003.
- A relative URL has one or more missing parts. The missing information is taken from the page that contains the URL. For example, if the protocol and Web server are missing, the Web browser uses the protocol and domain, such as .com, .org, or .edu, of the current page.

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