Powerpoint presentations now won't play.

Before I get around to discussing Spain, I'd appreciate help with playing Powerpoint files.

I have been using PPS viewer 2003 for years which WAS working fine on my main PC until recently!  When friends send me a PPS now & I try to open it, I get a message on my screen which I think said it was PPS 2007.

Exactly WHAT should I download to get it to work as all PPS I get now seem to need a key word or number. As I don't have one it plays as expected (as before) for a few seconds then a message demands this key number which I've not got so then it plays but misses out the music.

Sorry, I can't explain it better.

Any thoughts?  

Microsoft Office 2007 and after are not backward compatible.  (Good old Microsoft).  You need to download a patch from Microsoft to allow your older software to recognise the newer versions (It's free but takes ages to download). 

You can download the patch here and this will also make Word, Excel etc compatible.

One tip, download it to a memory stick.  You then have the download available if you want to run it on another PC and it takes a quarter of the time to run it.

Are you trying to open the file directly from the e-mail attachment? If so, try saving the file first to a location on your PC by right clicking on it; then go to the folder you saved the file to and open it from there.

I have no idea why, but (for me at least) Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer refuses to open .pps files attached to e-mails; I installed Open Office on my PC, which gives you everything Microsoft Office does (but for free), including a .pps viewer that will happily open presentation attachments without having to save them first, and offers many more options for viewing as well. (If you keep Microsoft Viewer as well, you may need to reset your default to Open Office)

PPS files are only in Office 2007 and 2010.  Pior to that they were PPT file extensions.  If you have an earlier version of Powerpoint, you need the patch from Microsoft to read the PPS format files.

The Open Office viewer will open both .ppt and .pps files.

Still trying options but didn't want you to think I was unappreciative. Thanks!

Many thanks, now sorted out.