Creating an Autorun CD that will play even if the recipient does not have PowerPoint

 

Very Important! - - Read This First

Before creating your PowerPoint® presentation, assemble all of  the sounds, animations, narrations, movies, and any other files you think you might use, into a single working folder.  When you begin creating your presentation:
 

Ä

 Save it first to this same working folder and then begin adding files, links, etc. to the presentation. 
Ä Save often to protect your work. 
Ä Don't link to any file that does not already reside in your working folder. 
Ä When your presentation is complete, save it to the same working folder.   
Ä Now test the presentation thoroughly in PowerPoint® before creating an autorun CD. 
Ä These steps are VERY important to help ensure that your file links will still work when you transport your presentation to other systems!
Ä For a more detailed explanation, please go to the "Asolute Vs. Relative Link References" tutorial.
  
 You must have, or have access to, a CD-R drive. This procedure may look a little complex, but once you have structured a folder on your hard drive, as follows, the next time you want to create an Autorun CD of a new PowerPoint presentation, you will only have to edit the present.lst file (Step 11) and replace the files in the \present folder with the files for your new presentation (Step 12). Therefore, once you have completed this procedure successfully, save your work and the effort next time will be minimized.
  
This tutorial addresses creating an Autorun CD for use by PC users. 
  
Macros or ActiveX controls and components will not work on an autorun CD because they are not supported in the PowerPoint Viewer.  Also, unhappily, features that are new in PPT2000 are not supported.  Examples are animated GIF's, screen tips added to hyperlinks, picture bullets, and automatic numbering.  We all hope that Microsoft will release a new version of the Viewer, but it is probably not likely to happen.
  
Use the 8.3 naming convention. That is, filenames should be no more than 8 characters, and file extensions should be three characters.  Use only alpha (A-Z) or numeric (0-9) characters.  Use of special characters like !@#$%^.':", space, etc., may cause problems on some of your clients' systems.  Absolutely do not use spaces in your file names! 
  
If you have an Iomega Zip Drive, please see How to Use Your Zip Drive to Test Autorun It will save you from wasted test CD's.
  
Before you begin, be sure that in Windows Explorer you have set the View > Folder Options > View and check/select "Show hidden files and folders"  and uncheck/deselect  "Hide file extensions for known file types", as illustrated. 

(Reaching this menu may differ if your system is running an Operating System other than Win 9X.  Try checking  Tools > Folder Options to see if your OS displays the menu described.) 

Follow the red path below to verify that your settings are correct:



 

Finally, maybe you're like me and you really like to understand how something works, rather than just taking directions blindly.  If so, go to How this whole mystery works!, and then return here and proceed.

Okay, you're ready to begin, step-by-step:

1) Create a "staging" folder on one of your hard drives. For our purposes we'll call it D:\Staging.

2) Create a folder under your staging folder called \installer .

3) Download the PowerPoint 97/2000 Viewer Install file from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=048DC840-14E1-467D-8DCA-19D2A8FD7485&displaylang=en and save it in the \installer folder.

Note: There is no need to install the Viewer since you obviously already have PowerPoint on your system.  Instead, using WinZip, you will extract the files you need from the PPView97.exe file and stage them for inclusion on the CD.

You will need WinZip 7.0 for the following steps. If you don't have it on your system you can download it from http://www.winzip.com/bonanzaa/ . (Note: This tutorial does not include directions for using WinZip, but hopefully it will be intuitive enough to get you started.)

4) In "My Computer" or "Windows Explorer", locate the \installer folder and right click on PPView97.exe. Then select "Open with WinZip".

 

5) A new window will open with a list of files included inside PPView97.exe. Select PPView1.cab and right click. Left click on "Open".
 

6) In the new window that appears, highlight all files except Acmsetup.exe, Acmsetup.hlp, and Mssetup.dll (they won't be needed). Select "Actions" and left click on Extract....

 


 7) Locate your staging folder in the window that appears, click "Selected Files", make sure that "Use Folder Names" is un-checked, and left click Extract.

All of the needed files for successfully running the Viewer from your CD will now be in your staging folder.

8) Create a folder under your staging folder called \setup.

9) Move ppview.dll from the staging folder to the \setup folder.

10) Create a folder under your staging folder called \present.

 

11) Use your favorite text editor, such as Notepad, to create a text file called present.lst (lst as in "list") that contains one line per presentation that you want to include (e.g., my_presentation.ppt or my_presentation.pps), left justified. This example is for including one presentation, but you could have subsequent lines with the names of additional presentations.  Save this file in the \present folder.

Please note: Microsoft Word is a document editor, not a text editor. Use NotePad.  It works for this task.  The file MUST be named present.lst, not present.txt or present.lst.txt.

Click on File > Save as... and save the file as follows (use the quotes to ensure that the file will be saved with the correct name of present.lst):

If you have multiple presentations which are "linked", list only the first/primary presentation file in present.lst.

If you want the Viewer to loop indefinitely through your presentation(s) please see the tutorial "Continuously Looping Presentations on an Autorun CD" to create a special present.lst file. 

12) Copy your .ppt or .pps file from your working folder to the \present folder. Also, copy all of the linked files, presentations, narrations, .avi, .wav and .mid files. etc., used in your presentation from your working folder to the \present folder.

There should be NO sub-directories under \present!

13) Use your favorite text editor, such as Notepad, to create a text file with the following two lines of text, left justified:

[autorun]
open=ppview32.exe present\present.lst

Save this file as autorun.inf in your staging folder.

14) You're not quite finished. First, verify that your folder structure matches the view below, and then complete Steps 15 thru 17 that follow. Folder names must match, and filenames and file extensions in the root and setup\ directories must match the view below. Check to be sure you have not used uppercase unless indicated.

Verify the contents of your Staging folder

 

   

15)  You may want to include the \installer folder and the PPview97.exe file on the CD. This way, if the recipient of the CD wants to install the Viewer on their system, a download won't be required.

16) Follow the procedures and directions provided with your CD ROM drive and copy everything in your staging folder to the CD. I recommend that you use Adaptec Easy CD Creator (Now Rosario).  (Copy only the folders and files within your staging folder to the root folder of your CD. Do not create a "staging" folder on the CD!)  Create a CD-R, not a CD-RW.  A CD-R can be read on other systems.

17) Test the resulting CD on your system(s), and those of friends, if possible, to ensure that it starts automatically. Make additional copies by repeating Step 16.

18)  Troubleshooting: 

  1. Problem:  If you've gone through this whole process, but you are still having problems and your CD will not run automatically when inserted in your CD drive, perhaps it would help to review how this whole thing works to make the magic happen.
    Answer:  Go to How this whole mystery works! for a detailed explanation.
     

  2. Problem:  My CD does not autorun.  I insert it and nothing happens.  I receive no message.
    Answer:  It is possible that your CD ROM is not set to recognize the autorun.inf file.  Go to     Make sure that your CD drive is prepared for Autorun     for instructions on how to verify the setting and correct it.  If this is not the problem, return to Step 13 and ensure that you have no typos in the autorun.inf file and that it references a valid present.lst file.  Make the necessary corrections and try again.

  3. Problem:  My CD does not autorun.  When I insert it, I get a message that says, "PowerPoint Viewer cannot find x:\present\present.lst". 
    Answer:  Make sure that you verified your Windows Explorer settings in bullet # 7 in the "Read Me" section at the beginning of this tutorial.  Then check your CD (see Step 14).  Make sure that your present.lst is named correctly and truly does exist in the \present folder.  Open the present.lst file in Notepad and ensure that it is truly a text file.  (If you used MS Word to create your present.lst file, it will not work.  You should use Notepad instead.)  Open the autorun.inf file in Notepad and ensure that you made no typographical errors.  Note:  The present.lst file MUST be named present.lst and that's the name that must be specified in the autorun.inf file.  Ensure that you didn't accidentally name it present.lst.txt or present.lst.doc, for example.  Make the necessary correction and try again.
     

  4. Problem:  My CD does not autorun.  When I insert it, the screen goes black and then I get a message that says, "PowerPoint Viewer can't read ÿþyourpresentation.ppt", or something like that. 
    Answer:  That little ÿþ usually indicates that your present.lst file is corrupt or was not correctly created.  Ensure that you used Notepad (see Step 11) to create the file.  Try recreating it and then view it in Windows Explorer to be sure that it matches the file shown in Step 11.  Make the necessary corrections and try again.
     

  5. Problem:  My CD does not autorun.  When I insert it, I get a message that says, "PowerPoint Viewer cannot read x:\folder\filename".
    Answer:  Check your present.lst file in Notepad.  Review Step 11 and ensure that you followed the directions for the present.lst file correctly.  Ensure that you have typed the file name and extension correctly.  Verify that they match your CD exactly.  Typos will get you every time!  Computers are dumb.  They can only do what you tell them to do.  Make the necessary corrections and try again.

  6. Problem: My CD runs fine on my system, but in my testing on other systems I have encountered a system on which the CD will not autorun.
    Answer: If you have verified that the system settings on the tested system will recognize the autorun.inf file on the CD (see Problem #1, above), it is possible that you have encountered an old system or CD drive that just won't autorun a CD.  To address this, I make it a practice to insert a small sheet of printed instructions with the CD to address this possibility.  At Appendix A, you can see and download an example of a Word document that you might want to modify, print, and include with your CD to address this possible situation.

  7. Problem:  I followed all of the troubleshooting tips and still cannot resolve my problem.
    Answer:  E-Mail me at mailto:sonia_coleman@msn.com?subject=Can't make CD autorun, even after following Troubleshooting steps and I will work with you to resolve the problem.

For any questions you have regarding PowerPoint, or to "lurk and learn", be sure to visit the PowerPoint newsgroup at news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.powerpoint. You'll soon learn, as I did, that there are some extremely knowledgeable and responsive experts ready and anxious to help and to answer all questions, big or small.

You'll also find lots of helpful PowerPoint information at Steve Rindsberg's site: http://www.rdpslides.com/. His list of FAQ's at http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq.htm is loaded with great info and help.