Hello everyone.



I use Office 2003. For various complicated reasons, I had to install PowerPoint 2010 to work on one particular PPTX presentation. That's done. Now, however, my computer opens all presentations with PowerPoint 2010 by default. I don't want that. I want my computer to open my PPT files in PowerPoint 2003, just like it always did in the past. How do I configure my computer to do that?

-TC

You need to right click on one of your presentations. Go to "Open With" then select choose default program. From there navigate your main drive into program files go to ms office, office 11 and then find the powerpoint exe file. It should change all the icons after that is done. If you have any trouble finding the exe file. Search it then make a copy of the icon.

Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I've tried this and it does not work. When I use "Open With" to tell Windows to open a file with C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\POWERPNT.EXE, it ignores my instruction and opens the file with PowerPoint 2010.

Also, your post mentions icons in a way that seems inconsistent with my experience. My PPT files display the PowerPoint 2003 icon, and my PPTX files display the PowerPoint 2010 icon. Nevertheless, Windows opens both file types with PowerPoint 2010.

-TC

does your 2003 still work ok. can you open the file from powerpoint 2003?

what program does it say it will open with when you go to the properties of each Icon. You might be able to change it in there.

PowerPoint 2003 still works okay. I can open PPT files from within that program.

If I go to the "File Types" dialog box and choose PPT, it says "Opens with: Microsoft PowerPoint". Changing the associated program there behaves the same as right-clicking and choosing "Opens With" -- it doesn't allow me to change to PowerPoint 2003.

I think this is one of those situations where Microsoft is using some special voodoo. Have you heard of advertised shortcuts? With an advertised shortcut, you don't point to an executable file; instead, you point to a program which defined somehow in the registry. My current problem reminds me of advertised shortcuts, but I'm not expert enough to know more than that or how to deal with it.

-TC

Your correct, it is voodoo!

It's also quite difficult to fix. What we do is create a shortcut on the desktop to each version of PowerPoint and drop the file onto the one we need. (This is for 2007 / 2010 but it should work with 2003 the same)

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Try this if changing the file association does not work. Open 2003 and click on help. Then click on detect and repair. That should undo the vodoo and reassociate any of the 2003 office applications to open with 2003 by default. It should also work on 2007. If that doesn't work there may be something going on with the click to run or office starter stuff.

I know that my response is 10 years too late, but I just found this forum today. My solution to your problem is to find the folder with office 2003:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11

and make a copy of the programs that I would use like word, excel, and ppt and COPY them as

excel2003.exe
winword2003.exe
powerpnt2003.exe

Then when I do Open As, I select the 2003.exe version and make sure that it opens to the old version.

Yeah I know, new office breaks old office code and screws up my PowerPoints.

Now can someone answer my question, how to I get office 2003 to run on windows 11 AND still have OneDrive working? The only solution I've found so far is to unlink OneDrive, but I've become hooked on OneDrive.

office2003-4-ever!

I love office 2003. Best version ever.
For newer OS versions they can sometimes run them in compatibility mode but truthfully its a nightmare with powerpoints contain a lot of shapes.
I personally use virtualbox and use a windows XP virtual machine to run office 2003. For one drive you would set up the folder on your windows 11 and then make a shared network drive on your virtual machine. No internet needs to be enabled on the virtual machine because windows XP + internet yipes!!!. I can discuss this more with you if needed since I think a VM is the only way to go for maximum performance.

Let me know how I can help.