Issue with Active X viewer on very old PowerPoint

Dr. Perry suggested contacting you about this issue.

It's a weird one. I've got a large set of old MS Powerpoint files from the early 90's (version 4), that have some pertinent and mostly still valid information in them, but, can't view them with the viewer.

I've used the previous one, and your most current release, but all I get are Hex or Text displays.

I'm running DrOpus 9.1.06.344, and Office 2003 under Windows XP, SP2.

Initially, the files would not open in Office. Microsoft posted a registry tweak that enabled opening them, so they now do within office. Just can't be viewed in the viewer. Appreciate any help on this one. Thanks.

Here's the MS link, but I don't think it will help.
support.microsoft.com/kb/938810
It describes the following tweak:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileOpenBlock]
"FilesBeforePowerPoint97"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Security\FileSaveBlock]
"FilesBeforePowerPoint97"=dword:00000000

P.S. I tried to attached a sample ppt file, but got a message that said PPT not allowed. I could email it to you if you like.

Does the same thing happen if you try to view the file using Internet Explorer?

If you zip the file you should be able to attach it. I don't know if there is much I can do to make it load, though. It seems odd that Office only respects the registry setting when told to load a file some ways but not others but I don't think the ActiveX plugin has much control over that.

Is it not possible to load the files into PowerPoint and then save them out in the newer format? That would solve it, unless you have a huge number of files to convert.

Apparently Microsoft have released a tool which will scan directories and batch-convert all documents into the new XML-based formats introduced in Office 2007. You can open those formats in Office 2003 provided the compatibility pack is installed:

blogs.technet.com/ewan/archive/2 ... ormat.aspx

Hi Leo,

Tired opening a file with IE7, and it fires up Office 2003 PowerPoint. So, it's viewable, just not very convenient.

I've also openned sample files and saved them as Office 2003 versions. Same thing. Only hex or text in the viewer.

I'm attaching a zip file with two PPT documents. One in the old format and the other in an Office 2003 format.

I also tried a full uninstall of Directory Opus, followed by a reboot, a registry clear, a reboot and then a reinstall. Same thing. No soap.
PPTDIAGS.zip (11.1 KB)

The newer version of the PPT file displays fine for me using both Office 2003 (on XP) and Office 2007 (on Vista). The older ones are blocked as I'd expect.

Do any PPT files display for you in the viewer? What about Word or Excel documents?

Hi Leo, looks like it's only PPT files effected. Word and excel all work fine.

I haven't tried working with old PPT files, but I have run across various wrinkles in the way that DOpus uses viewers, which seems to be your issue.

Viewer configuration crops up here from time to time. You have a lot of control over this, and can experiment to see if anything will resolve the problem.

If you have other viewers on your system, then you may be able to persuade them to kick in rather than the one you are using now.

On the standard menus:

Settings>>ViewerPlugins>>Plugin Manager

You may be using the ActiveX plugin for these files. This is powerful, but may not be able to handle the more arcane, or oldest, formats.

If you have other viewers, such as QuickView Plus, another file manager, a search tool (X1, for example), it might come with viewers that can handle your old ppt files. (One day, I will work out the locations of all the various viewers I have on my PC!)

The trick is in configuring MultiView (telling it where to find those viewers) and getting it to kick in before th ActiveX viewer. Just change the order in the area I have indicated.

I have retrieved your PPT files. Both display just fine in my DOpus viewers. I wish everybody followed your advice.

PS The ActiveX viewers don't work. Just a load of code.

Hi DonF,

I've sent you a private message with instructions on how to make the ActiveX plugin output diagnostic messages which may help us understand why PowerPoint isn't working within the Opus viewer. Let me know how you get on.

Just FYI, I know it doesn't help much, but everything works fine with Office 2003 SP2 (see below). Indeed it looks like the security patches in Office 2003 SP3 broke this in some way.


Hi Leo, I uninstalled everything associated with Office, cleared a whole bunch of registry and program files entries, and reinstalled the various Office products. I also uninstalled DrOpus and reinstalled that.

First test showed that everything (old and new) works fine.

However, after installing the various office patches and updates, one of the old PPT's converted to Office 2003 works o.k. but the old ones only show as hex.

I then installed the Office powerpoint registry tweak, and now both old and new files are displayed properly in the viewer pane.

Thanks for spending your time on this. I know you have plenty of other things to do, and I really appreciated your quick responses. Sorry to have to bother with this, as it was clearly related to other registry or MS patch issues and not your code at all.

May want to file this as a potential "solution" if anyone else has the problem.

Thanks. Glad it's working now!

This note in The Guardian may explain what happened.

The article picks up on this item on OFFICE Watch "Office 2003 Service Pack 3 – yes or no?".

To quote:

Confirms and explains the user's findings.

Older files not opening with Office 2003 SP3 was explained in the Microsoft KB article linked in the first post by DonF:

The strange thing was that newer PowerPoint files were not opening in the viewer for DonF either, but it seems that was fixed when the latest Office patches and/or registry settings were applied, so all is well now.

(FWIW I've always been able to display the newer PPT files in the viewer on all of my machines with Office, without having done anything other than keep it up-to-date via Microsoft Update.)

There is another wrinkle with the ActiveX viewers and Microsoft Office.

Maybe it is the way I use it, but when I ask ActiveX to display a Word file, it shows revisions, comments and formatting. Probably what Microsoft calls "Final Showing Markup"

Multiview just shows "Final".

The ActiveX viewer just loads the document using Word. What is displayed is up to Word and how the document was when it was saved.

If you don't want to see the extra details you can probably turn them off in Word. (Not sure if you also have to re-save the document with them turned off.)