Well, from the comments you posted, it looks like you have joined the
Windows XP/2003 product world. I have 25 yrs in the computer business
and have never seen such a buggy, and unruly bunch of junk as the XP
product line (including office XP - all versions). Most problems are
fixable ONLY through a total reinstall of every product you have,
including the Operating system.
I have been able to fix a lot of problems related to XP installations.
In your case, here are my recommendations.
You might try going to Start/Run/MsConfig, click on the startup tab and
disable as many items as you are comfortable with. THEN when you have
disable enough of these items ( I would start with ALL of the startup
stuff disabled) go back and add them one at a time. (Yes, this will
mean about 20 reboots in between each startup item being enabled)
Alternatively, you could bring up the task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and
kill processes in there (again, I must mention that you would do them
one at a time, testing to see if PowerPoint would come up after each
process killed. If you find a process that interferes with PPT, you
can either remove the offending software (provided you can
crossreference the task name to the software that invoked the task) or
find the "startup tab" item that invokes it and de-check the box for
it.
These ideas for using the MSCONFIG troubleshooting tool to get rid of
conflicting programs by removing their ability to "startup" also apply
to "services" using the "services tab" of the msconfig tool.
You can also go to the control panel (in classic view) , and stop each
service, one at a time, then try to invoke PowerPoint. After you try
to invoke powerpoint, you can turn each service back on. When you find
the offending service, if you don't need it, right click on it and
select properties and either disable it or force it into manual startup
(instead of auto).
XP starts a BOATLOAD OF stuff that is rarely used and mostly a
nuisance.
If you try the above and don't achieve success, I would be surprised.
READ ON
You still may have to reinstall your video driver (I am NOT joking)
and or check your screen color settings (millions of colors, true
color, 256 color) etc. When you have tried to open ppt with different
color settings and it still doesn't work, be sure you have the latest
video driver for XP from your video card manufacturers web site.
NEXT go to control panel/ System / Hardware tab / click on Device
Manager, make sure you don't have any yellow or red marks, or "other
devices" listed. If you do, you definitely have hardware driver
problems that you will need to resolve before you do anything else.
You should just see pretty little icons with + marks next to them. NO
yellow question marks or RED X's.
NEXT go to control panel/ Administrative Tools / Event viewer. Check
the "Application log" (this will most likely tell you the source of
the powerpoint problem) for any RED "errors" (double click on the error
to read it) ...ALSO check the system log for errors.
IF you find any errors, you can enter the name of the failing component
(example= NAVAP is the component in the message "The NAVAP service was
successfully sent a start control.") into
www.google.com and see if you
can find out more about how to remedy that particular problem. You are
not supposed to have a lot of red X's. (you may have a few, but you
should ABSOLUTELY know why they occur and what the impact is to your
computer.
Hope this helps.......ps, I don't think your tech put very much effort
or skill into helping you. These are all things that should have been
tried BEFORE a reinstall of the software. All that's left in the
computer business any more are mostly low paid rookies hired by
corporations looking to save bucks instead of hiring experienced IT
staff. You have my sympathies.
INDIA SUPPLIES THE WORST TALENT.....BEWARE INDIAN CODERS AND TECHS.
MOST OF XP WAS MADE IN INDIA, 95/98/2000 WERE MADE IN USA.
