Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

[woodsmoke]

I ran into this the last week when the college did an "update" to the Win 7 Enterprise deployment.

Perfectly normal powerpoints are displayed as "black" in the "folder view" from outside the folder and then black inside the folder. When opened the powerpoint then says that some files are corrupt, there is now pattern, it seems to be random, and there are slides inside that are now just blank and you are screwed.

I complained and was told to send an offending file which will result in no help.

Here is a link to a recent Microshaft help thread discussing the problem and apparently, you are just screwed if you have a file in a previous version, open it in the new version, and if it decides to corrupt the file it does so and you don't know until you try to open it again.

The size of files being doubled is a new twist that I had not known until I read the thread... 700 Kbytes goint to 1300 Kbytes

Below is the thread AT MICROSOFT if you need to read it, otherwise no need to go to it.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/...f-96c5ceec38b1

Tomorrow I'm going to offload all of the ppts onto a usb stick and then rebuild them over Christmas, just what I wanted to be doing, and then save them to two sticks and when a file is corrupted I'll just open the other saved file, so I'll always have a repetitive version on a usb drive and thereby give the shaft to Miocroshaft.

woodsmoke

[Detonate]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

That was a very interesting read to me, because I do extensive work with a volunteer agency that has a lot of their presentations, Which I save to my computer, as Power Point Presentations. I don't think it will affect me, as the guy who puts the presentations together uses Office 2007 and I've never had a problem opening the files with OpenOffice. However most of the people in the organization use windows, and I am sure some of them may have upgraded to MS Office 2010. Things really start rolling for us this month, with the training, which uses the presentations in a couple of weeks. If I hear of anyone having problems opening the files, I will know why.

[woodsmoke]

Win 7 corrupting older files is a scam they're not corrupt in original program



This is JUST HILARIOUS.

Today, I took in an empty memory stick and offloaded ALL of my lectures etc. to bring home to work on rebuilding them.

I saw the tech guy, he was talking to a secretary, told him what I was going to do, he again said that I should send a file to the IT people and treated me in a VERY SNOTTY manner, telling me that since I was using Open Office that I would just have to put up with not being able to work efficiently, etc, and that it really was MY problem all that crappola....

I replied that that I have a fully functional Vista setup and that "the people" had voted with their mouse clicks that MS products were what they want but that I preferred, when possible, even with the hassel to work with software that was not produced by a company that had predatory practices and that preyed on unsuspecting people and left.

But this is JUST HILARIOUS and I CANNOT WAIT to tell him.....

The FILES ARE JUST FINE!!!!!!

The slides that are BLANK in the Win7 PPT program at the college are there and completely functional.

I opened them in OO AND............AND...........on the Vista Machine using Office 2007(I bought the business version). And with OO on the Vista machine.

The "black" pages inside the file view at the college are not there, and the ppts that were completely black at the college are fully functional.

This is ALL A SCAM...............ALL A SCAM............. > > >

So I have now learned what to do.

Make the presentations at home, like usual, instead of modifying them at the college which I was doing this semester.....information about "certain topics" is changing VERY quickly..... and make two copies so I always have a "good one" just in case....

Take them in and just "use" them, not modify them and they should do just fine, because, apparently, from the linky above it is opening in the latest one and saving in the previous one that supposedly "corrupts" them...

This is just hilarious and also PITIFUL that they are so desperate to do this.

I am sure that there is some one or two bytes or bits in all that "xml" stuff that is in the files and Office is programmed.....somehow....to look for them and if it doesn't see them, and it puts a changelong into the xml also then it does this "blanking" thing but doesn't really "corrupt" them, at least for now,

possibly for fear of a lawsuit, but I have no idea, that is just speculation...

what a joke.

woodsmoke

[MoonRise]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

Sorry to say but that is normal M$ business practice. Break what worked before to force people to migrate forward even when they don't have to. It is how they ensure there is cash flow for not only them but for the hardware industry. It was set with the first release of M$ DOS that pushed out DR-DOS.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Win 7 corrupting older files is a scam they're not corrupt in original program

.....
This is ALL A SCAM...............ALL A SCAM............. > > >
....

It's all part of the cash-generating upgrade treadmill Microsoft tries to lock you on to.

The cure is to move to LibreOffice, even if your organization uses Office. I have encountered very FEW Office docs that would not read (or write) just fine in OOo/LOOo.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

Hi guys
as to the normal method of operating, I've run into "can't open the file" but never "a corrupted file". I can see the "can't open a file" they could have plausible deniability that "it just isn't backwardly compatible" but this is a whole new level of lying.

As to OO at the college that won't happen. They have "sniffers" that report instantly if ANYthing is downloaded onto the computer, and that is reported back to the IT office instantly. One is blocked from downloading anything except a video that is compatible with RealPlayer. And absolutely NOTHING that is a .wmv file or anything compatible with Media Player.

Every evening all of the computers are "rebuilt" and any media file that was downloaded, I guess they have a sniffing program that records when a media file was downloaded from the net, is erased.

But, the hilarious thing is that I can put whatever I want, in terms of media files, on the computer from a USB stick! And they are left there! lol.

I am almost certain that this is all at least in part because of the North Central Accreditation Board inspecting the school in January, That is another reason why I moved all my stuff off the computer. They've been "ramping up" about workshops for us to remove back e-mails etc., which I have not attended and nobody else has either, but I think that next week they will formally tell us that it is time to remove everything from our documents file on the network because of the inspection.

That way they eliminate any possibility of an inspector finding something "suspect" on the system.

A few years ago the head of my department got an e-mail from his daughter, who was attending a college which is out of state, and she had won a cheerleading event and was on the top of a pyramid and a spotter was holding one of her legs while she had the other leg stretched out horizontally, and her hands up in the air...

all that cheerleading stuff and the IT people went after him like stink on a stick because he had pornography on the system and he basically told them bring it on that he was contacting a lawyer, and he did. The lawyer contacted them and they backed off.

But this whole political correctness and everybody is wrong except the big brother of education, or anything in general, is really getting tiresome. And it has gotten a lot worse in the last year. Every administrator that I have seen from any college wears Uriah Heep clothes and walks around like some kind of cartoon of the guy with the net trying to catch children.

The IT people are especially loathsome. When I first started there they were leery of me pushing compatibility with Linux and they had a guy that could do Windblows and Linux, but when the original head of the school passed away...a jewel of a man, he had been a lifer in the State Department who really did have his head screwed on straight and new just about everybody from all across the world, a real jewel of a guy, that took the college from small to very big in about ten years... he was all about compatibility with any OS from across the world.

And when I indicated that something wasn't working with Linux they pretty quickly fixed it. When the head of the school died the Linux guy left and it is now all MS with "the politically correct words" that they want to be compatible with all systems and "will try their best"... but I can see now that they are in the pocket of MS and that is what the North Central people want also.

Anyway... thanks again for the comments.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

.....
I am almost certain that this is all at least in part because of the North Central Accreditation Board inspecting the school in January, .....

That way they eliminate any possibility of an inspector finding something "suspect" on the system.
.....

I taught at a small private college in Mid-Nebraska about 40 years ago and became well acquainted with the North Central Accreditation Association (as it was called then) as that college worked to achieve accreditation. Having them attend your lectures and labs, go over your teaching materials and grade books, etc... was ... interesting, but highly political.

Seventeen years later the academic dean, a friend I met as a freshman in college, was hired by that college and he asked me to teach there again. As fate would have it they were preparing for an elevation in accreditation from a 2 yr college to a 4 year college. The second time around it wasn't so intimidating and one knew how to play the game. And, it was even more about PC than before.

Interestingly, while that college is private, it DEPENDS on their students qualifying for various Federal Grants, without which that college would instantly cease to exist. There are hundreds of small private colleges all over the US just like it. Equally interesting, in these times of economic troubles their enrollment reached an all-time high of nearly 500 students.

[woodsmoke]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

same here for enrollment, going up by leaps and bounds, and my classes filling week before last instead of the day before the semester starts!

woodsmoke

[Detonate]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

I may have missed it but what exactly do you teach woodsmoke?

[woodsmoke]

Re: Win 7 corrupts ppt files and doubles size

presently biology and environmental science and when at H.S. all of the sciences and all of english, 7 - 12.

My degree is an earned M.S. in plant ecology.

woodsmoke