V8i to CONNECT - Reference links now broken

We are working in a Projectwise Environment with the C:\pwwork folder integration.

We have used V8i for many, many years. 10's of 1000's of DGN files have single and combinations attachments of tifs, dgns and dwgs.

The problem we are seeing is now when opening these files from ProjectWise, all of the reference links are broken and must be re-pathed.  However, if we open the files with V8i, the references are intact and show up fine.

Reassigning all of the references is not an option, as many files have been finalized and versioned in Projecwise and besides that, there are just too many files to even think about going that route.

From this issue, it would seem that there is a configuration path not assigned properly in CONNECT.  I've looked through but can't seem to find anything that I would think is obvious.

Can someone help point me to a resolution here?

Thanks.