Office 97 locking up...

[delmer_1]

Hello,
I have a user who is trying to insert a picture into a powerpoint 97 presentation. When she clicks on Insert>Picture>From File, the window pops up where you can browse to your image, but then powerpoint stops responding and you have to End Task. Excel does the same thing. However, Word works perfectly fine. I tried re-installing, but still no go. I even uninstalled, rebooted, deleted the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office directory and then tried installing it again. It still will not work in Powerpoint or Excel, but it works with Word. I just downloaded the windows updates, installed Office 97 SR2, and scanned the PC for viruses. IT still doesn't work. Does anyone have any suggestions???

[MacGyver]

Powerpoint/Excel might be choking on the file when trying to preview it. You can turn off the preview by selecting a different file listing mode. In the open dialog box, at the top there is a row of toolbar buttons. Find the one for "List" and that will remove the preview window.

If that doesn't work, try dragging and dropping the image file into Excel/Powerpoint instead. Or try a different image format (JPG is good), or scale down the picture so it's not so large.

[delmer_1]

it won't even let me select a file to insert. I just shows the window and immediately locks up. i can't select a file or use the dropdown box to change drives.
I click Insert
I click Picture
I click From File
It pops up the window and immediately locks up powerpoint and excel. It willnot let me click on anything.

[MacGyver]

What about drag n drop?

[delmer_1]

Well, drag and drop lets me insert the pic, but it looks like SH**. i did manage to change it from preview mode to list mode and now it is not locking up anymore. thanks very much. She wasn't really thrilled about not having a preview, but at least she can work. Do you have any ideas how to fix the preview mode??? I noticed that it defaults to the My Documents folder when you open it. there is one .bmp file in that folder, do you think it could be a problem with that specific bmp? I would try moving that file to a different folder, but she said she needs to get her work done and asked if I could come back later.
Thanks again for all of your help.

[SubZero]

Moved to Office 97.

[Stalemate]

Do PowerPoint and Excel point to the same "user" directory as default?

It may be that the image file in this folder is choking things up.

BTW, *.BMP images can get *huge*. Try *.JPG or *.GIF to conserve space.

I've heard of companies outlawing PowerPoint because users were creating files which took hundreds of Mbs!

[orange]

I've had similar problems with Office 97, the PC would freeze for like 90 seconds when the user clicked on the Fonts listview or tried to do a Print Preview. Turned out that removing the AV software cured the problem - both were using InoculateIT Personal Edition. I've never had any other problems with InoculateIT and i install it on every system i build. Strange but true <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

[seanmeade]

You might check out the video setting for the PC. If the graphics mode is set too high say 1024x768 and/or 32-bit colour then you may get memory problems trying to display the graphics. Try lowering the graphics acceleration in the control panel \sytem\performance.