Preserve absolute links when converting Word documents

_How did you verify that the links in the PDF are relative?

When I hover over them on the pdf file (or open the properties and view the Action for the link) they show front slashes instead of backslashes, the icon shows a "W", spaces are replaced with %20 etc., and they open in a web browser.  Ongoing additional annoyance: although I select the option to allow opening links, I get a security prompt every time.

_Also, are the original files saved on the same drive as the linked-to files?

No.  I create the files in a working folder on a separate drive, then move them to the folder from which the users access them.  The results I described previously, and to which I will add some details below, are the same whether the working folder is on the LAN or in my local My Documents folder.

I create the hyperlink in the Word document as follows:

1. Insert >> Hyperlink (or Ctrl + K)
2. Click the Browse for File icon, navigate to the folder on the LAN where the link target is located, select the file, and click OK.  It makes no difference whether I navigate to a network folder (\\servername\foldername\subfoldername\filename.pdf), use a mapped drive letter, copy the fully qualified path (\\servername, etc. from a text file, or type the entire path and file name.  The result is always the same: a web style path, and a prompt every time I try to open the file in a web browser.
3. Note: When I follow the exact same procedure in Excel, Acrobat creates the link as a standard network path (\\servername, etc.), and opens the file with the program registered for that file type.  Why would Acrobat handle the links, created in the exact same way, differently in the two programs?

Further, it used to work properly (or at least in the way I expect, and as it still works when converting an Excel file: with a standard network path being created as the same thing in the pdf file).  I don't know when it changed.  Perhaps it was an errant update.  I uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat XI, but with the same result.

For the cost of Acrobat I should not have to accept it that it is going to do its own thing in this matter, and further to go about it differently in Word and Excel, but even then the simplest thing would be to accept the flaw and move on if not for the invariable security prompt every time a user opens a file.  That is absolutely unacceptable.

The workaround is that I have created a Word macro to list to a csv file the hyperlinks for all Word documents in the current folder.  I create the pdf file, then edit the pdf hyperlinks one by one, replacing the Open a Web Link action with Open a File.  I copy the network path from the csv file, and paste it into the File link.  At least Acrobat accepts it and doesn't decide to change it back to a Web link.