PPT2002: Web Session and Cookie Information Lost Opening Presentation

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q314535

SYMPTOMS

You may encounter error messages or problems when you attempt to open a PowerPoint presentation in the following Web-based situations:

When you open an attachment from a Web-based mail client (such as Outlook Web Access), you may receive a logon prompt or a password dialog box.
When you follow a hyperlink to a file that is stored in Xerox DocuShare, you may receive a DocuShare error message that states that the user is not logged in.
When you work in Lotus Domino and you follow a hyperlink, you may receive an error message that states that the file cannot be found or that the user is not logged in.
When you link to a PowerPoint presentation by using any form of session-based or cookie-based authentication scheme, you may receive various error messages such as DNS (file not found) error messages, or your logon credentials may be invalid.

Back to the top

PowerPoint 2002 should open the file as a read-only file, but PowerPoint instead attempts to open the document for full (read-write) access before the file is fully downloaded and available. The error message that is generated from the Active Server Pages (ASP) page or Common Gateway Interface (CGI) script indicates that PowerPoint attempts to open the file as a read-write file to update the user information, but that the attempt fails.

Back to the top

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Microsoft Office XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307841 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307841/EN-US/ ) OFFXP: How to Obtain the Latest Office XP Service Pack

After the hotfix is installed, the following files have the listed attributes or later:

   Date          Time    Version     Size        File name     
   ----------------------------------------------------------
   11-Jan-2002   15:59   10.0.3708   5,974,344   Powerpnt.exe

When you attempt to install the fix, you may receive the following error message:

The upgrade patch cannot be installed by the Windows Installer service because the program to be upgraded may be missing, or the upgrade patch may update a different version of the program. Verify that the program to be upgraded exists on your computer and that you have the correct upgrade patch.

IMPORTANT: This patch will not install unless the Office XP Service Pack 1 has been installed first. To install Office XP SP1, click the link below:

http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/oxpsp1.aspx (http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/oxpsp1.aspx)

Back to the top

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 2 (SP-2).

Back to the top

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

On a computer with Internet Information Services (IIS), create a new ASP file named Test.asp that uses the following code:

  <%@ Language=VBScript %>
  <HTML><BODY>
  <%
    Session("Sample") = 1
  %>
  <a href="testppt.asp">Navigate to a PPT file.</a>
  </BODY></HTML>

In the same folder, create a second ASP file named Testppt.asp that uses the following code:

  <%@ Language=VBScript %>
  <HTML><BODY>
  <%
    Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint"

    If (Session("Sample") = 1) Then
       Response.Write "We got the PPT data."
    Else
       Response.Write "We lost the session state!"
    End If
  %>
  </BODY></HTML>

On another computer that is running PowerPoint 2002, start Microsoft Internet Explorer and browse to Test.asp on your server, as follows:
http://[yourserver]/test.asp
When the page opens, click the hyperlink to open a test PowerPoint file. If you are prompted to confirm the download, click Open to open the file directly.

When the file opens, a slide displays the "We lost the session state!" message.

Although this problem is specific to PowerPoint 2002, users of versions of PowerPoint 2000 earlier than Service Release 1 (SR1) may experience similar behavior because of another problem that was corrected in Office 2000 SR1. For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

264143 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/264143/EN-US/ ) FIX: ASP Session Variables Empty When Office 2000 MIME Types Are Streamed with Internet Explorer

Back to the top