Stop PowerPoint auto-pause

Question

Powerpoint pauses when I'm trying to use my computer while PowerPoint is playing in the background.

First off, please fix this or at least make it an option for presenter' view.

Your suggestion is to use as individual window; however, when you run it fullscreen (windows) it still pauses.

I'm an educator, and I like to write emails and take roll while I'm playing a video in the presentation. I basically can't use my computer or need a second computer just because powerpoint pauses. This is a simple fix. Please stop the Powerpoint Auto-Pause.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond and also understanding my frustration.

In your response you shared a link. The link went to a site, but the links there didn't work.

Why can't support give suggestions to the developers? This has to be impacting thousands of customers, and it's got to be an easy fix.

If you could find a link to development feedback, that would be amazing. Thank you,

Charlie

Answer 2

>> This is a simple fix.

Unless you're looking at the actual PPT code, how can you be sure of that?

But let that slide. Suggestion: Instead of inserting the actual video, save the video file to the same folder as your PowerPoint file then on your slide, add a link to it.

Clicking the link will launch Media Player or whatever other media player app you've set as your default. In most cases, the app will launch the video and continue playing it even when you switch to another app to do something else.

Answer 3

https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/0badf8c9-ece4-ef11-b542-0022484ce599

Answer 4

I'm sorry this link is not displaying correctly on your device, you can press the shortcut Windows + F on your device to open Feedback Hub or try clicking this link: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/

After submitting your feedback, please share the link to your feedback in a reply so that community members can vote for your feedback, thus increasing the attention of this feedback.

Inside PowerPoint, just click Help - Feedback - Make a Suggestion in the top toolbar.

I hope this has been helpful!

Best Regards  Eliac.S - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 5

Hello Charlie Ecker,   Welcome to the Microsoft Community. Understand that when you are playing a presentation video in full screen in PowerPoint, switching to another application causes the slideshow to pause automatically, which affects your need to multitask during teaching. We fully understand the impact of this situation on productivity, especially in teaching scenarios where multiple tasks need to be operated simultaneously.

Based on your description, we have tested the related issues. The current design logic of PowerPoint on Windows is that slide shows in full-screen mode are automatically paused when the program window loses focus (e.g., by switching to another application or clicking on the desktop). This mechanism applies to the full-screen state of most applications, mainly to ensure the focus of full-screen content presentation. However, we also note that for user groups that require multi-screen collaboration, such as educators, the existing design may not be able to meet specific usage needs.

As a community support team, although we will try our best to help you deal with the issue and discuss the possibility of this issue with you, since the community support team mainly focuses on providing guidance and troubleshooting, and is not involved in the product design and development, therefore, regarding this kind of issue, we suggest that you give feedback to the product team about your usage scenarios, and submit suggestions for improvement directly through the “Help - Feedback” function in PowerPoint. Submit improvement suggestions directly, or click this link:

Send feedback to Microsoft with the Feedback Hub app - Microsoft Support

This will help us optimize the product design.

After submitting your feedback, you can also share the feedback link in a reply so that community members, including myself, can vote on it, thus increasing the visibility of this issue to the development team.

Thank you for your support and valuable suggestions, and we will continue to work hard to improve the user experience. Best RegardsEliac.S - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist