The first slide of a linked presentation may not appear in PowerPoint 2003

When you use an action button in a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentation to link to another presentation, the first slide of the linked presentation does not appear.

This issue may occur if the numbering of the slides in the linked presentation starts at zero.

This problem was first fixed in a hotfix that is now contained in a service pack. If you installed the latest Office 2003 service pack, you do not have to install the hotfix.

Service pack information

This problem is corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 3. To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Office 2003. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
After you install the service pack, follow the steps that are listed in the "How to enable the hotfix" section of the article to set the ForceHyperlinks1Based registry key and to activate the hotfix.

Hotfix information

How to obtain the hotfix

This issue is fixed in the PowerPoint 2003 Hotfix Package 899406. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

How to enable the hotfix

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

To enable this hotfix, follow these steps:

1. Quit PowerPoint 2003.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate and then click to select the following registry key:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Options
4. After you select the key that is specified in step 3, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
5. Type ForceHyperlinks1Based, and then press ENTER.
6. Right-click ForceHyperlinks1Based, and then click Modify.
7. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.
8. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

This problem was first corrected in Office 2003 Service Pack 3.