Hello All,

This is the first time I've ever had to post a question (usually someone else has asked/had it answered before), but I'm completely stumped. So my situation: I have two separate excel workbooks, each with a spreadsheet that I have entered as a linked table in an access database. I use the access database to perform some simple SQL operations on the linked tables, which include some views with basic WHERE statements and a few INNER JOINs on the two tables. Then, within each workbook, in separate tabs from the linked tables, I have some of those SQL queries. So the basic set up is:

Workbook A <----------> Access Database <-----------> Workbook B

where both workbooks have a linked table AND returned external data connections to the workbook. I use the database to pass information back and forth between the workbooks, essentially. If I open either workbook on my desktop and refresh the external data source, it works fine: exactly how I expect it to. Now, here's where things get weird. When I have other people in my department try to use it, a few various things happen:

1.) All of the external database connections fail to refresh (a little message pops up saying the connection to the database could not be refreshed).
2.) A warning pops up that asks the user if they want to allow external data connections. If they allow, sometimes the data refresh operation succeeds, and sometimes it doesn't (it seems to depend on the user: i.e. a user for whom it fails will always have it fail).
3.) The other workbook is opened. That is, they double click Workbook A, and Workbook B gets opened instead. This is the one that frankly makes absolutely no sense to me.

I have "Allow Users to Edit Range" protection on both the sheets, but it doesn't seem to make a difference if I remove it or not. I checked to see if the users had their network drive mapped to a different shortcut than I did, but that was not the issue. I also thought it might be the 32 bit vs. 64 bit Microsoft office that was at the root of the problem, but doesn't appear to be the case. (It may be the 32 bit vs 64 bit version of Windows -- I know I've had some issues with that in the past when I've tried to pass around VBA workbooks). I also tried altering the Trust Center settings for people who were not getting the pop up message to allow data connections, but it did not make a difference (i.e. they still did not receive a pop up to allow external data connections when they opened the spreadsheet). The only constant I can figure out is that it works perfectly for me, and it works for a few other selected people, but it's not behaving at all like I expected for most people.

So! If anyone enjoys a challenge I would really love some help, because frankly it's been driving me up a wall for the last three days.