Edit/Links server change

[Guest]

Hello, here's the situation. A number of people in my company have
powerpoint files that use a lot of links on a public drive. The alias of
that drive has changed. So the mappings are like
\\server1\folder\document.xls. But now, server1 has changed to server2.
There are a lot of files and a lot of links per file. I guess my first
question is, is there any way to change all of these links in edit/links to
the new correct server name in a simple and quick manner? Changing every
single one of these links would obviously take a huge amount of time. And
two, for future reference, if this drive is mapped as a Z: drive, should I
just use the drive letter to map these drives instead of the actual server
name? Thank you.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hello, here's the situation. A number of people in my company have
powerpoint files that use a lot of links on a public drive. The alias of
that drive has changed. So the mappings are like
\\server1\folder\document.xls. But now, server1 has changed to server2.
There are a lot of files and a lot of links per file. I guess my first
question is, is there any way to change all of these links in edit/links to
the new correct server name in a simple and quick manner? Changing every
single one of these links would obviously take a huge amount of time. And
two, for future reference, if this drive is mapped as a Z: drive, should I
just use the drive letter to map these drives instead of the actual server
name? Thank you.

I'd definitely use mapped drives. I can't swear that it'll work perfectly;
PowerPoint often reports UNC paths even when you've created a link to a file on
a mapped drive. Then again, it has a habit of mis-reporting the paths to
links in some cases. It may be actually storing the path to a mapped drive but
showing the UNC path to the file it's found there.

As far as fixing the existing files, it's probably do-able. It can get a bit
complex to track down every link of every type in a presentation, but if it's
just e.g. hyperlinks, it might be possible to do a fairly simple fixup macro.

Suggestion: download the free FixLinks demo at http://get.pptools.com and run
a link report on a couple of typical presentations. Post the results here
(abbreviated if they're extremely long).

 

[Guest]

So maybe I'm not exactly sure how to use this tool, but it seemed simple
enough. I click on the button to run a link report, and nothing is
happening. Is a report supposed to pop up or does it hide it somewhere? It
doesn't seem like it's doing anything The fix links and go to shape buttons
seem to be working ok.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

So maybe I'm not exactly sure how to use this tool, but it seemed simple
enough. I click on the button to run a link report, and nothing is
happening. Is a report supposed to pop up or does it hide it somewhere? It
doesn't seem like it's doing anything The fix links and go to shape buttons
seem to be working ok.

Odd. It should create a file called REPORT.TXT in your PPTools folder (where you
installed FixLinks) and open it in Notepad.

If the PPTools folder isn't writeable under your current permissions, it'd prevent
it from working.

Oh, and (sorry if this is painfully obvious) you'd need to have a presentation open.

 

[Guest]

I'm sorry but this FixLinks demo just isn't working for me. Any other ideas?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I'm sorry but this FixLinks demo just isn't working for me. Any other ideas?

Shoot me an email at steve atsign pptools dot com

Before doing that, click the ? (help) icon on the FixLinks toolbar and put a checkmark
next to "Enable verbose logging"

Quit and restart PPT, then open your file and try creating a Link Report again.

Then click ? again, click Diagnostics; include a copy of the report that generates in
your email.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

When I tried that macro, it errored out at:

oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName = Replace(oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName,
sOldPath, sNewPath)

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

When I tried that macro, it errored out at:

oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName = Replace(oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName,
sOldPath, sNewPath)

I'd need more info to help with that.

What was the error message?
Are you certain both paths were typed correctly?
What were they?
Did it error on the first slide/OLE object or someplace further along?
Was this run on a copy of the same file whose Link report you sent?

 

[Guest]

It was a run-time error, -2147467259 (80004005)
LinkFormat (unknown member): Failed

It asked me to end or debug.

For the paths, I had:
sOldPath = "\\boss\oivnts01\"
sNewPath = "\\boss\osgvs002\"

Is that what I was supposed to do?

It errored out on the first slide and it was from the same presentation that
I sent you the link report on.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

It was a run-time error, -2147467259 (80004005)
LinkFormat (unknown member): Failed

It asked me to end or debug.

For the paths, I had:
sOldPath = "\\boss\oivnts01\"
sNewPath = "\\boss\osgvs002\"

Is that what I was supposed to do?

It errored out on the first slide and it was from the same presentation that
I sent you the link report on.

I recall that there was something different about the link on the first page ... it pointed to a
completely different directory.

I've modified the code here:

Change OLE links
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00759.htm

to add a little error handling. It should now get past the first slide.
Give it a try and let me know how it works.

 

[Guest]

Alright, good news and bad news. Good news is that it finished without a
run-time error. Bad news is that it didn't seem to do anything. All the
links were still pointing to the oivnts02 server. When I tried it on my
user's pc, it froze up powerpoint a couple of times. When I stepped through
the code, it looked like it spent all of it's time looping through the error
handling part of the code. Am I doing the paths right? Should I leave boss
in there? I tried using just the server names instead but that didn't work
either.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Alright, good news and bad news. Good news is that it finished without a
run-time error. Bad news is that it didn't seem to do anything. All the
links were still pointing to the oivnts02 server.

Are there copies of the files on the other server? You can't set a link to a
file that's not there. ;-)

But (sorry, forgot to answer this earlier) looks like you're entering the
path info correctly, but to be sure, post the full unc path to where the
files were and where they are now. I seem to've misplaced the earlier report
you sent. InDUHvidualistic of me, I know.

When I tried it on my

user's pc, it froze up powerpoint a couple of times. When I stepped through
the code, it looked like it spent all of it's time looping through the error
handling part of the code. Am I doing the paths right? Should I leave boss
in there? I tried using just the server names instead but that didn't work
either.

It was a run-time error, -2147467259 (80004005)
LinkFormat (unknown member): Failed

It asked me to end or debug.

For the paths, I had:
sOldPath = "\\boss\oivnts01\"
sNewPath = "\\boss\osgvs002\"

Is that what I was supposed to do?

It errored out on the first slide and it was from the same presentation that
I sent you the link report on.

I recall that there was something different about the link on the first page ... it pointed to a
completely different directory.

I've modified the code here:

Change OLE links
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00759.htm

to add a little error handling. It should now get past the first slide.
Give it a try and let me know how it works.

:

 

[Guest]

Alright, I talked to my server guy and he said this. These names are in the
same cluster group. If you ping the names, they resolve different IP
addresses, but they are pointing to the same physical box. I even mapped a
drive as oivnts02 just to see if it would work, and it doesn't. I can get to
all of the same files on that drive as I can the one mapped as osgvs002. All
that really changed was the name here. This was an enterprise wide change,
everything switched over seamlessly except for the links in these powerpoint
files.

Alright, good news and bad news. Good news is that it finished without a
run-time error. Bad news is that it didn't seem to do anything. All the
links were still pointing to the oivnts02 server.

Are there copies of the files on the other server? You can't set a link to a
file that's not there. ;-)

But (sorry, forgot to answer this earlier) looks like you're entering the
path info correctly, but to be sure, post the full unc path to where the
files were and where they are now. I seem to've misplaced the earlier report
you sent. InDUHvidualistic of me, I know.

When I tried it on my

user's pc, it froze up powerpoint a couple of times. When I stepped through
the code, it looked like it spent all of it's time looping through the error
handling part of the code. Am I doing the paths right? Should I leave boss
in there? I tried using just the server names instead but that didn't work
either.

It was a run-time error, -2147467259 (80004005)
LinkFormat (unknown member): Failed

It asked me to end or debug.

For the paths, I had:
sOldPath = "\\boss\oivnts01\"
sNewPath = "\\boss\osgvs002\"

Is that what I was supposed to do?

It errored out on the first slide and it was from the same presentation that
I sent you the link report on.

I recall that there was something different about the link on the first page ... it pointed to a
completely different directory.

I've modified the code here:

Change OLE links
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00759.htm

to add a little error handling. It should now get past the first slide.
Give it a try and let me know how it works.




:

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Sounds like we may be dealing with a bug in PPT, but given the complexity of the
setup, it's not something I can repro here to poke at. Rats.

You may want to run this past your server guy, Guy (sorry, I had to do that):

I tested the macro on a network setup here
The PPT file had a link to an Excel file brought in via mapped network drive (Q
that's mapped to \\boss\q-drive (a shared folder on a drive on a Win2000Server
box).

I put the same file in a folder on another mapped drive, P: (mapped to
\\boss\p-drive ... a different folder on the same physical drive as the other).

By swapping the "\\boss\x-drive" parts using the macro, I was able to direct the
link to whichever share I wanted.

Alright, I talked to my server guy and he said this. These names are in the
same cluster group. If you ping the names, they resolve different IP
addresses, but they are pointing to the same physical box. I even mapped a
drive as oivnts02 just to see if it would work, and it doesn't. I can get to
all of the same files on that drive as I can the one mapped as osgvs002. All
that really changed was the name here. This was an enterprise wide change,
everything switched over seamlessly except for the links in these powerpoint
files.

Alright, good news and bad news. Good news is that it finished without a
run-time error. Bad news is that it didn't seem to do anything. All the
links were still pointing to the oivnts02 server.

Are there copies of the files on the other server? You can't set a link to a
file that's not there. ;-)

But (sorry, forgot to answer this earlier) looks like you're entering the
path info correctly, but to be sure, post the full unc path to where the
files were and where they are now. I seem to've misplaced the earlier report
you sent. InDUHvidualistic of me, I know.

When I tried it on my

user's pc, it froze up powerpoint a couple of times. When I stepped through
the code, it looked like it spent all of it's time looping through the error
handling part of the code. Am I doing the paths right? Should I leave boss
in there? I tried using just the server names instead but that didn't work
either.

:

It was a run-time error, -2147467259 (80004005)
LinkFormat (unknown member): Failed

It asked me to end or debug.

For the paths, I had:
sOldPath = "\\boss\oivnts01\"
sNewPath = "\\boss\osgvs002\"

Is that what I was supposed to do?

It errored out on the first slide and it was from the same presentation that
I sent you the link report on.

I recall that there was something different about the link on the first page ... it pointed to a
completely different directory.

I've modified the code here:

Change OLE links
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00759.htm

to add a little error handling. It should now get past the first slide.
Give it a try and let me know how it works.




:

When I tried that macro, it errored out at:

oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName = Replace(oSh.LinkFormat.SourceFullName,
sOldPath, sNewPath)

I'd need more info to help with that.

What was the error message?
Are you certain both paths were typed correctly?
What were they?
Did it error on the first slide/OLE object or someplace further along?
Was this run on a copy of the same file whose Link report you sent?


:

 

[Guest]

Hi,
Did you try using a macro to update the text box ?