External references in Office products versus Windows Expl..

Our office operates in Windows 2000 and XP. When "Office" files were
cut/copied/pasted or moved to a different location...whether local or
server...the external references (paths not the data) contained within those
files were updated automatically to reflect the new location; however, this
does not seem to be happening in our new XP version of Explorer.

I've researched Windows XP support site with every variation of a search
topic with no avail...additionally, the only thing I have found in MSOffice
is information about updating the links within the product (data
related...not path specific).

Any advise on where I could begin my next quest for resolution?