Link changes after UNC path name change

[Steven Helms]

We have 4000 Word documents in a folder with nested subfolders.
We just installed a new server with a new name. Thus, the UNC path has
changed.
Changing the server name will probably require a new install. So we would
like to know if we can do the following.

All documents have an entry in the Tools | Templates and Add-ins | Document
Template field. The entry uses UNC path names. Is there a way/tool to
change all 4000 Document Template entries to another string?

The same 4000 documents also have Links to other documents. These links
also use UNC path names. Is there a way/tool to change the SERVER1 in the
UNC path name to SERVER2?

Thank you,
Steve

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Steven,

We have 4000 Word documents in a folder with nested subfolders.
We just installed a new server with a new name. Thus, the UNC path has
changed.
Changing the server name will probably require a new install. So we would
like to know if we can do the following.

All documents have an entry in the Tools | Templates and Add-ins | Document
Template field. The entry uses UNC path names. Is there a way/tool to
change all 4000 Document Template entries to another string?

It would require VBA programming, in any case. You might be able to do this
without opening the files using the DSOFile.exe tool available on
Microsoft.com. Otherwise, your code would need to actually open the files
(which could take a long time if the template can't be found) in order to
make the change.

The same 4000 documents also have Links to other documents. These links
also use UNC path names. Is there a way/tool to change the SERVER1 in the
UNC path name to SERVER2?

In this case, the files certainly would need to be opened before VBA could
work on them. I think you may find a tool at www.mousetrax.com for this.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep 30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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