Excel Message When Opening Files

[autigers2010]

Hello. When opening Excel files that contain links to other files, I often get a message in the lower right of my screen that says "Linking: (file name)" with a status bar (please see attached photo). This would not be a problem except that Excel seems to "pause" at this point for several minutes, meaning that it can take forever to open files, even relatively small ones.

Can any tell me why this happens, why it seems to take so long and how (if at all) it can be disabled?

Additional info that may be relevant:
1) I'm using Excel 2016
2) The files I am opening have links to more than 1 other file, but Excel seems to pick one of the linked files at random to give me the "Linking" message above
3) And Excel only displays the message for one of the linked files, not all of them.
4) It doesn't happen if the linked files are open, but opening each of the linked files each time is not practical for me.

Thank you.

 

[autigers2010]

Sorry, I see now that the attempt to include an attachment did not work, and that I cannot post attachment.

 

[Joe4]

Welcome to the Board!

You cannot upload files to this site. But there are tools you can use to post screen images. They are listed in Section B of this link here: http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/board-a...forum-use.html.
Also, there is a Test Here forum on this board that you can use to test out these tools to make sure they are working correctly before using them in your question.