Screen blacks out randomly after several days of a presentation

[Tom Edelbrok]

I have a small Office 2007 Powerpoint presentation that runs continuously on
a PC at the front desk of a company. It displays a page of phone numbers,
waits 10 seconds, then displays the next page. It is a self-help PC for
incoming contractors and visitors so they know how to contact people. It
works great. I set all power options in control panel to 'Never shut down'
and 'stay on always' (you get the idea).I also say 'no screen saver'.

However, every several days the screen blacks out almost like there is a
power save or empty screen saver feature turned on some place. I power the
screen off/on, off/on, but the image doesn't return. As soon as I move the
mouse the Powerpoint app returns to full view and I can see it changing
pages every 10 seconds.

How can I get rid of this annoying 'feature'? It runs fine for long periods
of time -then disappears.

Thanks,

Tom

 

[Tom Edelbrok]

I now have some further useful information.

I discovered what is causing the problem, though I don't yet know how to
solve it. Here's what happens: on the PC in question, if you are already
logged in, you can either do a reboot or 'log off'. If you reboot, the user
then logs into a local PC login account called 'frontdesk' (which is also a
local administrator account). In the 'frontdesk' user's startup is a
shortcut to the Powerpoint application, which starts up automatically as
soon as the user logs in. It works fine when you log in following a reboot.

However, if you are already logged in as a Domain user, then do a 'log off'
and immediately log in as 'frontdesk' (without rebooting) the Powerpoint app
will start up automatically and then freeze on the very first slide. This,
of course, is determined by the PC or monitor to be inactivity, so after
about 20 minutes the screen goes black. You get the image back by moving the
mouse.

This is very strange that the manner in which you start the session dictates
whether Powerpoint works properly or not, unless Powerpoint has left a DLL
in some strange state that affects the next session if you don't do a reboot
inbetween.

So I tried the whole scenario on another Domain PC and guess what -
everything works fine no matter how you log in or boot the computer. So why
would Powerpoint behave this way on one PC? We use Office 2007 everywhere.

Have posted this now on the Powerpoint forum - will do further posts there.
Appreciate any ideas.

Thanks for help in advance,

Tom