Consider the following scenario. You use Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 or Microsoft PowerPoint 2002 to create a presentation that contains multiple slides. Then, you add a background sound to the presentation. In this scenario, a slide in the presentation does not advance. Additionally, PowerPoint 2003 or PowerPoint 2002 may stop responding until the background sound stops playing.

This behavior may occur if the following conditions are true:

• You configure the background sound to play across multiple slides.
• You configure the background sound to play from a time that is set to the nearest second. For example, you enter 00:01 seconds in the From time box in the Play Sound dialog box.
  
  Note To view the From time box, right-click the sound file in the Custom Animation task pane, and then click Effect Options.

To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Turn on the "Continue slide show" setting for the sound object

To turn on the Continue slide show setting, follow these steps:

1. Disable the new animation effects. To do this follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Edit tab.
   2. Click to select the New animation effects check box, and then click OK.
   Note After you complete these steps, the Custom Animation task pane is disabled. Therefore, you can access the Custom Animation dialog box.
2. Turn on the Continue slide show setting for the sound object. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation.
   2. Under Check to animate slide object, click the background sound file.
   3. Click the Multimedia Settings tab, make sure that the Play using animation order check box is selected, and then click Continue slide show.
   4. Click OK.
3. Enable the new animation effects. To do this, follow these steps:
   1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Edit tab.
   2. Click to clear the New animation effects check box, and then click OK.

Method 2: Delete and then reinsert the background sound file from the original source

To delete and then reinsert the background sound file, follow these steps.

Note After you reinsert the background sound file, only the default settings are applied. You must complete steps 4 to 10 to configure the custom sound options to play the background sound across multiple slides in a presentation.

1. Click the background sound file in the presentation.
2. On the Edit menu, click Clear.
3. On the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, click the location of the background sound file, and then click the sound file that you want to add.
4. Right-click the background sound file that appears on the slide, and then click Custom Animation.
5. In the Custom Animation task pane, right-click the background sound file, and then click Effect Options.
6. Under Stop playing, specify the options that you want, and then click OK.
7. Close the Custom Animation task pane.
8. Right-click the background sound file, and then click Edit Sound Object.
9. Click to select the Loop until stopped check box, and then click OK.

Method 3: Do not configure the "From time" option when you add a background sound file to your presentation

Configure the From beginning option instead of the From time option. To configure the From beginning option, follow these steps:

1. Use a sound editing program to create a copy of the background sound file.
2. Click the original background sound file in the presentation.
3. On the Edit menu, click Clear.
4. On the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, click Sound from file, and then click the copy of the background sound file that you created in step 1.
5. On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation.
6. In the Custom Animation task pane, right-click the background sound file, and then click Effect Options.
7. On the Effect tab, click the From beginning option under Start playing.