When you start PowerPoint 97 for Windows, it does not check all the keys it writes to the Windows 95 or Windows NT Registry. This means that many of the PowerPoint keys can be missing or corrupt and PowerPoint will not automatically correct them. This behavior is different from PowerPoint for Windows 95, version 7.0 and is intended to improve PowerPoint 97's performance.

To be sure that you are re-registering PowerPoint 97 correctly, you should use the PowerPoint 97 or Office 97 Setup program.

If you have trouble opening files with a .ppt extension or inserting a PowerPoint Slide or PowerPoint Presentation into other programs, PowerPoint may not be registered correctly in Windows. A time when you need to re-register PowerPoint is when you install the 32-bit Viewer for PowerPoint 7.0 after you install PowerPoint 97. To re-register PowerPoint, run Powerpnt.exe with the /regserver command line switch. To do this, follow these steps:

1.	On the Windows Start menu, and click Run.
2.	Click Browse.
3.	Navigate to a folder that contains Powerpnt.exe. By default, this is the folder called: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office
4.	When you find the folder that contains Powerpnt.exe, click it, and then click Open.
5.	In the Run dialog box, scroll to the end of the command line and add /regserver to the end. For example, if the command line reads: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Powerpnt.exe" change it to read: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Powerpnt.exe" /regserver and then click OK.

The PowerPoint banner appears for a moment and then disappears. PowerPoint is now re-registered correctly.

Self registration is a supported on the Windows 95, PowerMac, Windows NT 3.51 and Windows NT 4.0 platforms.