Update file paths to movies in PowerPoint

I have recently had my work laptop upgraded to Windows 7 (from XP). This, of course, led to changes in the paths to "My Documents" (now C:\Users\..., formerly C:\Documents and Settings\...).

One consequence of this is that now PowerPoint 2007 won't play video files in my presentation as it stored the absolute path to them (I keep them in the My Videos folder). I have read in this question that PowerPoint doesn't support relative paths.

What I'd like to know: Is there a way to correct the wrong paths in my presentations, short of removing each video and re-embedding it? When I double-click a video, all that PowerPoint does is tell me it can't find it - but it doesn't give me a chance to change anything...

Solution 1:

PowerPoint does support relative paths. Sort of.

If you insert the video/audio file from the same folder that the PPT itself is saved in, you get a relative path.

You could give this a try (on a COPY of your PPT files, please):

Batch Search and Replace for Hyperlinks, OLE links, movie links and sound links http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00773.htm

It'd let you modify the old path to the new path on every link in a presentation.