On its recent patch day, Microsoft released security updates to fix vulnerabilities in multiple versions of its Office products. The patch for PowerPoint 2003 can, however, have negative consequences – after installation existing presentations may be unable to be opened or may cause an error message stating that the file is corrupted and cannot be fully displayed. In the latter case, the content of the presentation can only be partially read and any non-displayed elements, in particular background images, are lost for good after saving.
Microsoft is working on the problem and has published a knowledge base article which confirms the existence of the problem. Until the bug is resolved by a new update, users who experience problems are advised to uninstall the security patch from the control panel. Its designation is: Security Update for PowerPoint 2003 (KB2464588).