PPT97: Pack and Go Setup Runs PowerPoint, Not the Viewer

When Pack and Go Setup is finished unpacking a presentation, it asks you if you want to run the slide show. If you click Yes, PowerPoint 97 starts instead of the PowerPoint viewer, and runs the slide show.

This only occurs if PowerPoint 97 is installed on your computer. If it is not installed, the PowerPoint viewer (Ppview32.exe) starts and displays the slide show.

This can be confusing. The Pack and Go Wizard saves a PowerPoint 97 presentation as a "PowerPoint 95 & 97 presentation," a special format that both PowerPoint 7.0 and PowerPoint 97 can read. Because PowerPoint 97 supports macros and additional animation effects which PowerPoint 7.0 and the PowerPoint Viewer do not support, a presentation may not look and behave the same in the PowerPoint 97 as it does in the PowerPoint viewer or PowerPoint 7.0.

Pack and Go Setup instructs Windows simply to show the presentation (.ppt) file as a slide show. It does not tell Windows which program to use to show the presentation. If PowerPoint 97 is installed, it is the registered 'owner' of files with a .ppt extension. Therefore, it opens the file and runs the slide show.

The 32-bit viewer that ships with Office 97 and PowerPoint 97 supports only the PowerPoint 7.0 (and earlier versions) file format. It can open the unpacked presentation, but it only displays the features which are supported by PowerPoint 7.0.

If you pack a presentation on your computer and then unpack it to see what it will look like, be sure to run the slide show at least two times (once by starting the PowerPoint viewer first).