Some controls on this presentation can’t be activated – Xcelsius! Help!
At SAP BusinessObjects I work in the role of a Solution Advisor and I have a collection of Xcelsius dashboard examples. I also receive new Xcelsius models from my colleagues from time to time. Several months ago I ran across a strange problem with my Xcelsius powerpoints. When I moved documents from one machine to another I began having problems openning these powerpoints and viewing my Xcelsius models.
Can’t be Activated in Aggravating
When opening powerpoint, I would see the following Windows error:
Some Controls on the Presentation can't be activated. They might not be registered on this computer.
I was left wondering if this was a problem with the new Powerpoint 2007, so an incompatibility between Xcelsius 4.5 and 2008. After some research and an excellent article from the Xcelsius Journal, I was relieved to find out it was neither. It was all about the flash viewer within Powerpoint.
Solving This Devilish Problem
Although I had long since upgraded my flash player within my Firefox browser, Powerpoint continued to hold on to the old flash version. Although I upgraded my flash player within Internet Explorer, Powerpoint didn’t seem to see it. Instead it was still using an old flash player and therefore I continued to get the message: Some controls on this presentation can’t be activated. They might not be registered on this computer. It was so frustrating. Eventually I was forced to manually perform a flash uninstall and a fresh reinstall.
Uninstalling Your Flash Player
For additional details about uninstalling your flash player, I recommend you refer to this article: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html
As a shortcut to the files referred to in this article, I have provided references to the Windows Uninstall programs here:
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player.exe
Next, you will need to launch Internet Explorer and go to the adobe website.
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
In some cases, you may want to manually download the installer for use offline. Consider going to this site and downloading the flash player installer for manual installations.
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/
Back Flashy Presentations
Now that you’ve upgraded the flash player referenced by Powerpoint, you can get back to viewing those flashy Xcelsius presentations. In the future I would expect Microsoft and Adobe to fix this problem. I hope I never have to see this message again: Some controls on this presentation can’t be activated. They might not be registered on this computer.
«Good BI»
All the Powerpoint 2007 users at my workplace get this error message opening my Xcelsius presentations, and they have followed the fix step by step but it still happens. Any ideas?
With Flash 10 out now, did it create new problems with a different fix?
Just solved the problem. The step-by-step fix works, but you have to re-install Flash with Internet Explorer. If you re-install Flash with Firefox, Powerpoint still doesn’t get registered properly.
Thank you! Thank you! thank you!
I had just re-imaged my laptop with Windows 7 and Office 2007 when I started getting the “Some controls on this presentation can’t be acivated.” error. I tried quite a number of things but didn’t think to un-install/re-install Flash, like you I just upgraded to the latest and greatest. Well, a quick un-install and re-installed Flash 10 and viola! it works. Thank you for posting this fix.