Cannot open powerpoint

[Curt]

Here is my problem: I have some students that have
powerpoints linked. So, there is one main one, and a few
secondary ones. Well, some of them can work on them one
day, and not the next. You try to open the file, and it
gives you an error message stating "Powerpoint cannot
ready (path of file).ppt." It then gives an OK and a help
message. The help message only states that it isn't a
powerpoint file, and you should open it with the
appropriate program. But the thing is, it shows it as a
powerpoint icon in the folder, AND you can see the
picture of the first slide in the "Details" window.
I'm running Win2k with Office XP.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Curt Vlaminck
Technology Coordinator
Chester Area School
Chester, South Dakota

 

[Sonia]

It sounds like the files might be getting corrupted. But there might be
other things going on:

- Are two students trying to work on the same presentation at the same
time?
- Are the presentations stored on a network drive?
- Are the students using different versions of PowerPoint?
- Are they saving the presentations to the hard drive, or are they saving
to a floppy or CD?

If the files are corrupted, there are some tips at:

Recovering a corrupt presentation
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00108.htm

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your help so far. The presentations are being
stored on a network shared folder. There is only 1 person
working on them at a time. (They all only have access to
their own folder). The Powerpoint versions are the same,
all Office XP. Is there any way to tell what is
corrupting them from one day to the next on the share
drive? I used the tape backup to restore the one
students, and it worked fine. But I'm not sure what is
causing this.

 

[Sonia]

Generally PowerPoint doesn't play well with networks. Have the students
copy/paste the presentation file to their local hard drive, work on it
there, save it there, and then move it back to the shared drive. You might
have better results.

Thanks for your help so far. The presentations are being
stored on a network shared folder. There is only 1 person
working on them at a time. (They all only have access to
their own folder). The Powerpoint versions are the same,
all Office XP. Is there any way to tell what is
corrupting them from one day to the next on the share
drive? I used the tape backup to restore the one
students, and it worked fine. But I'm not sure what is
causing this.