Movie objects are missing when you open a PowerPoint 2001 for Mac presentation in PowerPoint 2002 or PowerPoint 2003

When you use Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002 for Windows to open a PowerPoint 2001 for Mac presentation that contains movie objects, the movie objects are missing. For example, you see the following caption rather than the bitmap poster frame image: If you double-click this caption, you receive the following message:

This issue results from differences in the two operating systems. When you insert a movie file into a PowerPoint 2001 for Mac presentation, the location of the movie file is represented by something similar to the following: The same movie file location in PowerPoint 2003 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 for Windows would be similar to:

To work around this behavior, re-insert the movie objects using PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002 for Windows, making sure that the movie files are located in the same folder as the presentation.

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Copy the original movie files to the computer where PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002 is installed.
2. Open the presentation in PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002, and then delete all movie objects.
3. Re-insert each movie object. You can insert movie objects in any of the following formats:
   • QuickTime
   • MPEG
   • Audio Video Interleave(AVI)

All inserted movies are linked to your presentation. If you show your presentation on a different computer (including a Macintosh computer), remember to also copy the movie files when you copy the presentation. This way, the presentation and the movie objects appear correctly on a computer using either the Macintosh or the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.