Hi. I have an Excel problem that's driving me crazy. I maintain a WB in a secure drive and I want some information from that WB linked to a separate, read-only workbook on a public drive. The problems I get are:

1) The users who I want to be able to see the data as read-only have public access only (not access to secure drive). However, by linking the 2 WBs the users seem to be able to open the Master WB even though it is on the secure drive, which they don't have access to.

2) I've tried to fix the above problem by password protecting the Master WB but this seems to stop the links from working so data is not updating.
The 'linked picture' function would be perfect but when users double click on the image it attempts to open the Master. I've also tried linking the cells individually and then protecting the read-only WSs but when users double click on the protected WSs, even though they get the message that the cell they are trying to change is protected, it is still launching the Master (linked) WB.

I fear that the solution to this might be in VB which I don't know at all, but if that's the only way to achieve what I want perhaps this is a good time to learn.

Also, please accept my apologies if I am breaking any unwritten forum rules. I have never really used a forum like this before so completely unsure of etiquette.