Fix: Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server

Usually, when you are working in any of the Microsoft Office app, you might need to create a hyperlink to locate another content. But when you select the created hyperlink in your Office document, you may receive one of these error messages. Unable to open <URL>. Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server.

Or in some cases, you may see this message instead:

Unable to open <URL>. Cannot open the specified file.

Here, <URL> is basically the hyperlink you inserted in Office document.

As per Microsoft, this is a known issue. It occurs because Microsoft Office uses the Urlmon.dll file to handle all link based transitions which relates to the web. Now here’s the science behind it. The Urlmon.dll file sends a request to get a file via Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) through the proxy server. The proxy server will see that the request came from IE, based upon the HTTP User Agent field of the http://request. It then gives an error 403, basically saying Access Denied.

The Urlmon.dll file gets this and simply returns the error message such as Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server. The error means that the request failed, but you won’t get the acute reason why it is failed and what just happened. The fix to resolve this issue is to use a ShellExecute() on the URL. For this, you can make a simple registry change mentioned below. This allows the operating system to start the URL on the default browser. If the default browser isn’t restricted by the proxy server, the proper page is displayed. In this way, you can no longer see this problem.

Here’s how you can fix it.

Fix: Cannot locate the Internet server or proxy server

 Registry Disclaimer: It is recommended to create a System Restore point first, if you’re not familiar with registry manipulation.

1. Run regedit command to open Registry Editor.

2. In left pane of Registry Editor window, navigate to following registry location, depending upon your installation.

For 32-bit Office on 32-bit Windows or 64-bit Office on 64-bit Windows:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet

For 32-bit Office on 64-bit Windows:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Internet

If you don’t find any key after Office registry key, you need to create these sub-keys manually.

3. In the right pane of Internet registry key, locate the registry DWORD named ForceShellExecute.

4. Set ForceShellExecute to 1.

5. Close Registry Editor and restart your system.

After reboot, issue must be resolved.

Hope this helps!