How-To Geek

My grandpa has recently bought a new Compaq computer with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit on it. He gets a lot of powerpoints in his email and so I installed the Powerpoint Viewer 2007 for him. It works right after doing a fresh install of it, but then shortly thereafter, it either won't launch at all, or it will show a "MSVCR80.dll was not found" error. MSVCR80.dll is on the computer, I've tried to regsvr32 it, but that gives me an error as well. Attached is a screenshot of the System control panel applet, as well as a MS Problem Steps Recorder zip of me installing the viewer. I am quite experienced with computers, but I think this has me confused because of it being 64-bit. I've never worked with the 64-bit system before now. Any help would be extremely appreciated. If we can fix this problem, perhaps the How-To Geek can write an article on how to fix it.

Here is the zip file: powerpoint problem.zip

Thanks.
cyberguy91

The thing is, I can uninstall the PP Viewer, reinstall it, and it works, but in a day or two, it doesn't. My grandpa doesn't have enough patience to do that every day. What do you mean by "And why on earth would anybody run a 64bit OS on such a small system."?? The computer is surprisingly fast. The computer itself isn't small by any means, and it has a 500gb hard drive in it. I'm just not sure I know what you mean.

By the way, in case you wondered, the extended specs of the system are:
OS: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU: AMD Sempron LE-1300, Sparta 65nm Architecture
RAM: 2.0GB Samsung Single-Channel DDR2 @ 385MHz (6-6-6-18)
Motherboard: Pegatron Corporation NARRA5 (Socket AM2), NVIDIA MCP61 Chipset
Graphics: 832MB GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 (HP)
HDD: 250GB Seagate ST325031 8AS SCSI HDD
Optical: hp DVD-RAM GH40L SCSI CdRom Device
Audio: Realtek High Definition Audio

Thank you very much, HTG. I haven't tried that yet. I will definitely try that if, or more likely, WHEN it breaks again. There is one more quick question, there are multiple copies of MSVCR80.dll. What directory or what copy of it should I use to copy into the directory? Also, if that doesn't work, do you think if I used 7-zip and extracted the PPT Viewer, similar to how the full Powerpoint does when you burn to a CD, and then place it in the root directory of the C drive. I know I've had problems with Need For Speed: Carbon in Windows 7, and installing it in the top folder of the C drive fixed it. Again, thank you very much, How-To Geek ("The Geek") and to Scott, the lead forum moderator at HowToGeek. I just signed up today, and was very pleased to see such support from both of you. While I was put off by the comments by "whs", but after the response from Scott and HTG, I will definitely use the forum more, and answer any questions that I feel confident about.

Ronson (cyberguy91)