OpenLP 3.0.1 only offering PDF Presentation support

Timboxy

As originally mentioned in:-

Timboxy
Did a fresh install of 3.01 on a Win 10 machine and downloaded the songs/bibles/themes/etc. Everything seems OK except that the only presentation type allowed is PDF. The others are greyed out as "unavailable". However, the machine does have MS Powerpoint installed and working.
How can I get it to recognise PPT and thus be able to use PPT presentations?
I have tried a repair install and a full uninstall and re-install to no effect.
Also tried the 32bit version but no change.

OpenLP doesn't seem to be recognising PowerPoint as installed as part of Office 2019. Whilst this is obviously not the latest version, not all churches need the facilities (and expense) of a 365 subscription and that version provides all they need. How can OpenLP be made to recognise it?

tgc

Please try again with the newly released 3.0.2, though to be honest it shouldn't make a difference...

The way OpenLP detects Powerpoint on Windows is that it looks up a specific folder in the Registry Database: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > PowerPoint.Application

If that key is missing, then OpenLP thinks Powerpoint is missing.

Could you try to looking in the registry database on one of the affected computers and see if that folder exists? If "PowerPoint.Application" is missing, how about any similar folders, such as "PowerPoint.Application.16"?

Timboxy

tgc
Please try again with the newly released 3.0.2, though to be honest it shouldn't make a difference...
The way OpenLP detects Powerpoint on Windows is that it looks up a specific folder in the Registry Database: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > PowerPoint.Application
If that key is missing, then OpenLP thinks Powerpoint is missing.
Could you try to looking in the registry database on one of the affected computers and see if that folder exists? If "PowerPoint.Application" is missing, how about any similar folders, such as "PowerPoint.Application.16"?

3.0.2 makes no difference as expected.

No "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > PowerPoint.Application" but there is a "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT > ms-powerpoint" with default vale "URL:ms-powerpoint" also "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\Package\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.PowerPoint_16051.16026.20146.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\ProgId\PowerPoint.Application "with a "CurrentVersion" string of "PowerPoint.Application.16" which I believe is what OpenLP is looking for.

It would appear that expecting the necessary entry to be at the top level of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is overly simplistic and doesn't cover all install types.

tgc

@Timboxy I'm investigating this issue, and trying to figure out what is going on... Would I be correct in assuming that you have installed MS Office / Powerpoint from the Microsoft Store?

If so, it can probably explain the issue.

As a small test, can you try to run these 2 commands in a powershell:

New-Object -ComObject "powerpoint.application.16"

And

New-Object -ComObject "powerpoint.application"

If both commands gives an error like this: "New-Object : Retrieving the COM class factory for component with CLSID {00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000} failed....", it will be hard to fix...

If it succeeds and list a lot of information, please post back the information here.

Timboxy

MS Office PP was installed by the distributor the church got the computer from so I have no idea of the install source.

Your command succeeded with copious information you may see here:-

https://pastebin.com/jGkjA0C7

tgc

Thanks for the data!

I think I've got an idea on how to make this work, but for now your fix of manaully adding the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ PowerPoint.Application folder is probably the best workaround.

Timboxy

Great. I opened issue #1347 on Gilab a couple of days on this with all the information here replicated there.