How do I start a photo slide show from PowerPoint?

Windows 7 comes with a screen saver that displays a slide show of images. It can even shuffle the images. You can configure it with the location of folder that contain the images. This screen saver can be launched from PowerPoint like a normal Windows application. This causes the screen saver application to start showing the images (optionally in random order). Note that you don't have to have that screen saver as active in Windows. Here are the steps that you can use:

  1. Configuring Photos Screen Saver
     
    1. In Windows 7, select Start | Control Panel menu item.
    2. Click Appearance and Personalization link.
    3. Click Change screen saver link under the Personalization section.
    4. In the list of screen savers, locate and select Photos item.
    5. Click Settings... button to configure the screen saver.
    6. Click Browse... button and locate and select your folder of images.
    7. Select the slide show speed from Slow, Medium and Fast options and check Shuffle pictures box if you want the photos to appear in random order.
    8. Click Save button.
    9. Click Cancel button as we don't really want to change the screen saver. We only wanted to setup the photo slide show settings.
       
  2. In PowerPoint, create a shape and select it.
     
  3. In PowerPoint 2007 or later version, select Insert tab on the Ribbon and click Action button in the Links group.
    In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, select Action Settings... menu item from the Slide Show menu.
     
  4. Select Run program option and enter the following text in the box next to it:
    C:\Windows\System32\Photoscreensaver.scr

Now when you click on this shape during the slide show, PowerPoint will launch the slide show screen saver as a normal Windows application and it will show the photos from the location that you had setup. You may have to select Yes to get past the virus warning that PowerPoint shows.

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