I am having the same problem a lot of people are having with Powerpoint - the crash that occurs when a sound inside Powerpoint is set to "play across slides".
After searching with Google, I have found numerous people having the same problem, and the causes ranging from conflict with video codecs, to conflict with applications and even conflict with printer drivers (wtf?). Complaining about this annoyance aside, I really need a solution to this problem for the following situation:
- I need a song to play "in the background" of all my slides.
- I will not uninstall any of my programs, I have no redundant software, my entire system is customized to my needs and there is no "uncommon" software on it.
- I need to be able to send this presentation to multiple people, the systems of whom I neither know, neither have control over.

The problem arises that I need the sound to be imbedded in the presentation and start with it, I cannot just second-rate play the sound separately and start the presentation, moreover that it needs to be accessible to, for the sake of simplicity, everyone.

So far I have tried several different ways around this problem that all fail, currently the presentation crashes right after the initial transition to the first slide, this will be referred to as "crash".
I have tried saving in *.ppt version, crash.
I have tried setting the sound to play on a click and end after # slides, crashes when sound is played
I have tried adding a video with the sound as audio and setting it to play automatically, crash

This happens on any Powerpoint file, now just on this particular presentation, I have tested it.

I REALLY need help fixing this issue!