"Could not load an object" or "some controls on this presentation cant be activated" messages

Problem

You open a PowerPoint presentation and see this message:

Could not load an object because it is not available on this machine

or

Some controls on this presentation cant be activated. 
They might not be registered on this computer.

When you click OK, the presentation appears to open normally.

Solution

This means that the presentation includes "controls" that were added on the computer where the presentation was created or edited but that are not installed on the computer. These are the controls that you add from the VB programming toolbar.

One possible cause of this warning is the presentation contains Flash content that was inserted using the SwiffPoint Player. You must have this player installed in order for the Flash content to work. SwiffPoint Player is a free download available at http://www.globfx.com/products/swfpoint/

Be aware that installing the SwiffPoint Player might cause you some frustration when you're editing files.
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00848.htm

In general, to solve the problem, either install the control on the computer or play the presentation on a computer that has the control installed.

Or on your computer, remove the control (this will stop the error message, but of course whatever the control did, it will no longer do once you remove it.) If you can work out which shape is the control, all you need to do is select it and delete it. One way to do that is:

• Open the presentation. Save it under a new name so you don't accidentally mess up your only copy.
• Press Alt+F11 to open the Visual Basic editor
• On the left, you'll see a list of open presentations named things like "VBAProject (presentation name)"
• Find the current presentation name and click the + sign to open it. There should be a folder underneath marked "Microsoft PowerPoint Objects"
• Open that and underneath you'll see e.g. Slide2 or the like for every slide with a control on it.
• Rightclick the slide icon and choose View Object to go to the slide in question.
• Look for things that don't quite look like the usual PPT objects. Delete them.

Instead of trusting to luck and looks, you can use the free PPTools Starter Set which includes a tool (the pig icon) that you can click to tell you the type of the selected object. If it's a Type 12/OLE Control Object, that's one you want to delete.

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