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Author Topic: Autorun Of A Newly Made Powerpoint CD. Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-18-2003 02:34 AM                     I just made a slide show using the Microsoft Powerpoint program. I would like to get that CD to start, load the presentation and play it. So far, I am half way. I "borrowed" an autorun.inf file and edited it to read: [autorun] open=powerpnt.exe So far so good. I fried the autorun.inf, the Powerpoint.exe, and the slide show.ppt to the CD and locked it. Then, I stuffed the newly burned CD in the other CRDOM drive, and it did, indeed, "autorun" and opened the Powerpoint program. However, I had to manually start the slide show. What did I do wrong? I tried several command lines in the autorun.inf, but they didn't work. So far, I have 6 CD's that ignored the command lines, with the exception of one. It hurled me an insult. Damned Microsoft....  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 09-18-2003 09:59 AM                        Open the presentation you want to save as a slide show. On the File menu, click Save As. In the Save as type list, click PowerPoint Show. Note: The extension for a file saved as a slide show is .pps. When you open this type of file from your desktop, it will automatically start as a slide show. PowerPoint closes when the show ends, and you return to the desktop. If you start the show from within PowerPoint, the presentation opens and can be edited. Use open=filename.pps in your autorun.inf file to start the show.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-18-2003 02:47 PM                     Could not make it work. I did save the file as a PPS file like you suggested. I used the "cmd" function in windows 2000 pro to re-edit the autorun.inf file. If I used the line open=filename.pps (where the file name is the actual name of the saved file) the insult I receive is "Access to the specific device, path,or file is denied." However, if I actually click on the file on the CD, it does start. I then added the powerpnt.exe in the inf file, it will open the PowerPoint program but the pps file has to be started manually. I played with "run=" and "open=" but I either got the same error or it just did nothing at all. Just by itself, the filename.pps in the autorun.inf won't do it. Maybe I forgot something else.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-18-2003 05:18 PM                     I'm actually looking around for something that will do the same thing, only making the .ppt/.pps file into an .exe file so that the graphics can't be extracted and used elsewhere. But here's one that might work for Paul. I'm downloading it now and will give it a try. It only has a 75% approval rating, though. Description page on Download.com  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-18-2003 07:24 PM                     I made it run thanks to both of you. Adam, the program you pointed to looks like it might work, but it didn't for me because some of the steps needed were not in the readme file. A few files have to be moved from one directory to the root directory of the CD that is going to be made. Daryl's idea will work...but unfortunately a whole bunch of files have to be with it. If all these files along with the a ppt or pps file are included, the only thing you have to do is edit the autorun.inf to make it work. I had to make one....because the one I tried was a read only file and I could not easily change the attributes. Maybe I could have done that through CMD, but I could not through Windows. Adam, I can send you the files if you want to do what I did.  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-19-2003 12:30 AM                     According to the instructions, everything in the directory that the program creates needs to be copies to the CD. The only thing you have to do is to rename your .ppt/.pps file and stick it in there with all the crap. I need to turn my .ppt file into a .exe file, though, so that viewers can't look at the guts of the slideshow, so I'll pass on yer offer, Paul. Thanks anyway, though. I did notice, however, that PowerPoint 2003 has a deal where you can create an auto-run CD directly from PowerPoint.  |  IP: Logged Paul Linfesty Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1383 From: Bakersfield, CA, USA Registered: Nov 1999 posted 09-19-2003 11:43 AM                     Why aren't these autorun programs included in the basic programs themselves? I have the same problem with Director and Impression (and Impression's sole purpose is to CREATE CD videos!)  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-20-2003 12:47 AM                     I did notice that when I get the *.ppt or *.pps to auto-run, the slide sequence timing is totally inconsistant. If I had everything timed to make it fit with the wav file, it works fine if I cancel the autorun and start it manually. Cow hum? There is also a difference between the slide transitition timing of a burned CD with a PPT and a PPS file even though the file size is the same. Again, Cow hum?  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-20-2003 02:09 AM                     Drive access speed of a CD-ROM drive is significantly slower than a hard drive. Since Powerpoint doesn't have a very good pre-load method for images, etc., your timings will likely be off if you have images, sounds or fancy transitions to display. For a hefty multimedia presentation, I'd convert it to Flash or something out of Director.  |  IP: Logged Paul G. Thompson The Weenie Man Posts: 4718 From: Mount Vernon WA USA Registered: Nov 2000 posted 09-21-2003 02:26 AM                     Adam, I think I found the trouble. The first page of overlays seemed to time OK, but when it came to the actual slides I had readjust a couple because they were overscanned in the add slide window. I am just guessing, but it took a little longer to load those slides when I was monitoring the events on my other screen. I also adjusted a few other minor things, and now it seems to work perfectly when running it from a burned CD. It now runs equally well on my old 400mhz AMD boat anchor I built out of junk and my main machine which is a 933mhz boat anchor. By monitoring the hard drive activity it appears to be loading in RAM before it plays. The file is about 38 megs. Does this make sense or am I speaking through my butt?  |  IP: Logged

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