PPT97: Slide Branching Lost When Saving as Previous Version

ID: Q162499

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft PowerPoint 97 For Windows
Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows 95, version 7.0

SYMPTOMS

When you save a PowerPoint 97 presentation that contains an embedded PowerPoint slide or PowerPoint presentation object into PowerPoint 7.0 format, you can not edit or run those objects from PowerPoint 7.0.

When you open the presentation in PowerPoint 7.0 and double-click the slide or presentation object, you receive the following error message:

The server application, source file, or item cannot be found. You should reinstall the server application.

This symptom occurs even if you created the embedded PowerPoint object from a PowerPoint 7.0 file.

NOTE: If you use embedded presentations to create a branched slide show in PowerPoint 97, you can not reach the branches from PowerPoint 7.0.

CAUSE

PowerPoint 97 inserts a PowerPoint 7.0 slide or presentation object as a PowerPoint 97 object. When you save the PowerPoint 97 presentation in PowerPoint 7.0 format, the embedded objects do not change. After you open the presentation in PowerPoint 7.0 and double-click the embedded object, your computer tries to start PowerPoint 97. If PowerPoint 97 is not installed on your computer, you receive the error message described in the "Symptoms" section.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, create branches by linking other presentations instead of embedding them. When you save your PowerPoint 97 presentation into PowerPoint 7.0 format, you must also open and save all of the branch presentations in PowerPoint 7.0 format.

NOTE: If your presentation contains features that are available in PowerPoint 97 but not in PowerPoint 7.0 they will be lost when you convert your presentation.

STATUS

We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

Additional query words: 97 8.0 8.00 ppt8 ppt8.0 downrev down revision save as previous version ole can't object linking and embedding

Keywords : kbole kbdta kbconversion
Version : WINDOWS:7.0,97
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb