Unable to open .ai files (Illustrator) from excel!!!

Hi to all.

I'm new in the forum and the illustrator.
I face an issue
I have create an excel file with a description and a hyperlink.
With this way the user is able to open all the file that was able to open in only one excel.
So far everything is OK.
My problem is this. i have add 3 new lines for 3 adobe illustrator files.
when the user make a click in the hyperlink open the adobe illustrator but is empty.
They don't opening the file that i have add in the hyperlink. (It happens only in the .ai files all the other files .pdf - .doc - .jpg opening without any problem)

I use windows XP with SP3 and adobe illustrator CS5

PS If the Illustrator is minimized all the links open without any issue!!!!!!

Thanks and regards.

I used to be OK in Excel but that was ten years ago but if I can remember correctly your hyper-link file must be in the common folder and that only works for Excel sheets (could be wrong though). I am also not sure that Excel will understand the .ai file but it should understand an external link to a server when published to html. This means that your .ai file must be uploaded to the linked sever through your html editor when the web page is published so I would suggest that you have a look there.

I may have mis-interparated your question so please come back if I have please come back. If I haven't do a search in Google on "Hyper linking in Excel through html" or something like that.

Sorry I had a memory laps I should have mentioned that Excel is so much better at handling PDF's rather than .ai file so change your save from AI to PDF.

May be the security issue. Please check the security settings on the spreadsheet.