If you open an Excel spreadsheet containing external hyperlinks, when you click the link, Excel will check that the link is valid (i.e. doesn't return a 404 error) before actually opening it in the browser.
This is utterly maddening for me and I cannot for the life of me figure out why the developers could have ever fathomed that this would be a remotely good idea.
The side-effect is that hyperlinks take a longer time to open, and/or cannot be opened at all if Excel's connection to your network is blocked (e.g. by a firewall).
I have tried disabling all the options in the "Trust Center" that relate to links but nothing has helped.
How can I turn off link checking in Excel forever?
Best Answer
A registry setting can change this behavior and force Excel to simply launch URL's in the default browser. There could be security implications, so be sure to read the following article carefully and decide if it's the right thing for you to do.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/218153#FixItForMeAlways
I ran the "Fix it for me" application after several unsuccessful attempts to manually make the registry edits.
Now my hyperlinks launch in the default browser, without the pre-check, regardless if it's clicked by the user, or programmatically launched in VBA.