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corrupt office 2003 file

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techidave:
at my school, we are running office 2003 sp3 on win xp pro sp 3 desktops.  Our students are having increasing problems trying to open files, especially powerpoint. 

we get the following error message:
Powerpoint was unable to display some of the test, images, or objects on slides in the file, “(the name of their file)”, because they have become corrupted.  Affected slides have been replaced by blank slides in the presentation and it is not possible to recover the lost information.  To ensure that the file can be opened in previous versions of Powerpoint, use the Save As command (File menu) and save the file with either the same or a new name.  :o

it is corrupt beyond reopening or recovering anything.  We cannot open the file to use the save as command.  I have tried manually renaming the file, nope that didn't work.  I also tried changing the extension from ppt to pptx, nada here also.  I have tried opening the file in powerpoint 2007, nothing that way either.

does anyone have any ideas on the whys of  this but better yet a solution??  I wasn't too far behind on my office updates, I couldn't find much when I google either.  I am currently reghosting a couple of computers with ALL the latest updates to windows and office in hopes that this might fix it.  :tellme:

open for suggestions  :'(

Shades:
You tried opening the 'bad' powerpoint slides in LibreOffice? In the past I encountered similar problems with Microsoft Office not being able to open its own files, while OpenOffice/LibreOffice had no trouble. In there I 'save as'-sed the files in the native format from Office 2003 and suddenly Microsoft Office is able to open the files again.

I have downloaded the portable version of LibreOffice from PortableApps.com not too long ago and it could be a decent fallback in cases similar to the one you are experiencing now.

techidave:
I will check it out.  thanks shades

BTW, LibreOffice must be a OO offshoot that I haven't heard of before. 

cchian:
I recently heard something similar to what you describe, it is likely after KB2464588 patch was installed.  Search "powerpoint corrupt april 2011" for more info.

techidave:
Not all of my machines had kb2464588 installed on them and they still had trouble.  Microsoft did release a patch, kb2543241 which I installed.  I did go to windows update to see if it would download this patch for me... NOPE.  :(  But the hoops you have to go to just to get the patch was incredible.  Fill out a form, wait for the email with the link, clicked on the link and it didn't work.  I had to copy and paste in order to get to that page.  Download the file, extract it, oh and it is password protected!   >:( 

I don't understand how the 2464588 patch got installed as my users do not have admin rights to install anything.

I will find out on Monday if the patch works.

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