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Best practice for PPT2007 and linked media & offline html

Hello Experts,

our co-wokers in sales department run into problems with linked media in Powerpoint 2007; we have basically two types of media:

1. Video files, different file types, some big files, 50-200MB/file;
2. "Local web content"; link in Powerpoint goes to a local index.html file and opens a browser session; the colleague navigates through the sites (all sites and media are local, too) and when he's done, heads back to Powerpoint.

There are two problems right now:

1. When I run that presentation and open the "local web content", a warning about "active content" pops up but the browser opens nevertheless and overlays the warning. There doesn't seem to be a problem with the content when I don't answer the warning box and allow the content. Also I have checked security settings in powerpoint, internet explorer and flash player, added save locations (C: Drive) but the message still shows up. I used IE and FF as default browsers but the warning pops up everytime so I guess it is still PPT-related.
Is there any way to disable this warning? I tried to reproduce this case on my PC with PPT 2010 but without trouble/warnings.

2. The presentations sometimes get stuck and Powerpoint cannot be used anymore, it has to be force closed and the presentation need to start again from the last sheet. This is not a permanent error, it occurs sometimes during navigation or video playback or when trying to get back from the browser...Is there an official or commonly known way to work with this mass of media..? As far as I know the files are always saved locally (not linked via network) and with linked relative paths.

Is there generally a "best practice" for all of this, with on-board functionality?
It is hard to re-educate some users, but if its profitable for their presentation, it might work ;-)
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Jamie Garroch (MVP)
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For #1, have you tried adding the linked resource domains to your trusted locations under File / Options / Trust Centre / Trust Centre Settings / Trusted Locations?

For #2, do you know what format wrappers (file extension) and internal codec parameters the media files are using? When PowerPoint gets "stuck" I assume it is showing as "Not responding" in the task manager?
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ASKER

#1: Yes, I added "C:" drive and "Desktop" to trusted locations; the presentationa and media files are saved to desktop folders (not my idea..).

#2: Unfortunately no; the sales people grab all media and files they can find and use them for presentation..there is no "default workflow". Also I couldn't reproduce the error when testing on a sales client - the error was reported after a outside appointment..So I am unable to get more details; Windows logs seem fine.
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Echo_S
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Unfortunately I cannot give you the exact wording, because it is German ;-)
The "key words" are "warning" and "active content" (Germ: "Aktive Inhalte").

As I said I already set trusted location to the file location and also enabled all security features in Powerpoint to allow all content, macros etc without promting for action... Still this one pops up everytime the user clicks on the Link to the lokal html file/content.

As for "getting stuck":
I haven't been able to "force" it to freeze, by clicking through some presentations. I am afraid this is too random to dig deeper..
Did you try the registry fix at that link?
The notebook is currently not available, I will give that a try next week.
Still this wouldn't be a solution, because then every security prompt (ie for downloaded templates or smth.) would be disabled.
Maybe a Office repair might work - this seems to be the only user/device with that problem (of course not every problem gets reported to us :-/ ..).
I don't think it disables all security prompts -- I believe it just disables those that occur during the presentation.

But yes, if this is the only system with the issue, then sure, run a repair. Maybe also check firewall and antivirus settings on that particular system.
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Problem solved