You receive an error message when you open a PowerPoint 2002 pressenation or a PowerPoint 2003 presentation in PowerPoint 97 (285457)

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003
Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 for Windows

This article was previously published under Q285457

SYMPTOMS

When you use Microsoft PowerPoint 97 to open a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 presentation that contains multiple masters, you receive the following error message:

Some controls on this presentation cannot be activated. They may not be registered on this machine.

You can open the presentation, but when you try to start the Visual Basic Editor, you receive the following error message:

PowerPoint found an error that it can't correct. You should save presentations, exit, and then restart PowerPoint.

CAUSE

This issue can occur if all of the following conditions are true:

The presentation was created with PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002.

-and-
The presentation contains multiple slide masters.

-and-
The second slide master contains a Microsoft ActiveX component named "SlideMasterCustomDesign."

This issue occurs because PowerPoint 97 does not support the naming convention used by PowerPoint 2003 and PowerPoint 2002 for the ActiveX component in the second slide master. PowerPoint 97 expects the first Visual Basic project for the slide master to be named "SlideMaster." However, the control on the second slide master is named "SlideMasterCustomDesign."

WORKAROUND

To work around this issue, open the presentation in PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002.

MORE INFORMATION

A presentation that you create in PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002 may contain features that are not compatible with earlier versions of PowerPoint.

For more information about features that are affected by working with a PowerPoint presentation in an earlier version, click Microsoft PowerPoint Help on the Help menu, type features affected by working with a PowerPoint presentation in an earlier version in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.

Modification Type:	Minor	Last Reviewed:	12/2/2004
Keywords:	KbVBA kbopenfile kberrmsg kbprb KB285457 kbAudEndUser kbAudDeveloper