PowerPoint 2007 reverting to PowerPoint 2003

[Jack21]

Hi - can anyone help?

I have noticed some very odd behaviour in Office 2007 when saving a PowerPoint Presentation. We have put in place a GPO setting that defaults to 97-2003 save format for documents, presentations and spreadsheets (the user can select from the dropdown, when saving, to 2007 format).

A user creates a PowerPoint presentation and selects from the dropdown to save as 2007 (as the default will be 97-2003), then closes the document and sends to someone for review. The reviewer then opens the presentation and makes changes then clicks on Save, rather than saving as 2007 the presentation reverts to 97-2003 format. This does not happen for Word or Excel which is confusing as they all have the same GPO setting in place.

Does anyone have a idea why this is different in PowerPoint?

Thanks in advance
Jack

[HansV]

Does the extension actually change, so that after saving, there is both a .ppt and a .pptx version of the same workbook on the reviewer's PC? That seems very strange, and I can't reproduce this behavior. Does the reviewer have an add-in that interferes with saving presentations?

[Jack21]

When the reviewer opens the 2007 pptx file the Save As option reverts to 97-2003, therefore if the user makes changes then clicks "Save" it will save as per the default (97-2003 format). It appear to hold the default format eventhough the presentation has been saved as 2007. In Word and Excel, if the user opens a 2007 document/spreadsheet and makes changes then clicks "Save" it saves as 2007.

It appears to be specific to PowerPoint but I am unsure why. I am aware that removing the GPO setting would be the way forward but at present it is still required for certain types of documents.

Regards
Jack

[HansV]

I temporarily set Powerpoint 97-2003 as default format. The Save As dialog faithfully suggested the "saved" format as default: .ppt for .ppt presentations, and .pptx for .pptx presentations. If I wanted to change the format I had to select it explicitly.
Is the reviewer's version of PowerPoint 2007 up-to-date? Have you checked for add-ins?

[Jack21]

Hi Hans

I am seeing this behaviour on all machines with Vista/Office 2007. I have a strong feeling this relates to the GPO setting but am unsure why the behaviour is different with Word/Excel and PowerPoint.

Think I'll raise a call with Microsoft to see if they can shed any light.

Regards
Jack