PowerPoint updating and compressing audio files upon inserting them

Question

PowerPoint updating and compressing audio files upon inserting them

Anonymous

Hello, whenever I insert a WMA file into power point, it automatically "upgrades" the files to decrease file size. And by doing this, it compresses the audio and it sounds worse than it did before compression.

I have high-quality audio files, so I don't want them compressed.

Every time I insert a WMA audio file, it always does this unless I choose to link it. It never used to do this before. I only noticed this today when my inserted audio sounded worse than how it does in other programs and previous presentations.

The only option now is to use different file formats for my audio. But I have thousands of WMA audio files to use in presentations and I really don't want to convert them all.

On earlier presentations I made a while ago, this dialog box appears now, egging me on to "upgrade" the files that are perfectly fine as they are. And I don't want to "upgrade" them! There is already an option disabling automatic compression of image files, so why not audio ones?

This is very frustrating to me. I know this is a "Microsoft Office Update" problem, as the program never used to automatically do this before, or tell me to "upgrade" files I already inserted and embedded, that I thought were fine. Is this a permanent thing I'll have to deal with or is a fix for this on the way? Please let me know.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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7 additional answers

Answer 1

Thanks again for your thoughtful follow-up. You're absolutely right to be concerned about this change potentially affecting other audio formats in the future.

As for rolling back to a previous version of Office, here’s how you can do that:

In PowerPoint (or any Office app), go to: File > Account > Update Options > Disable Updates
Visit the Microsoft 365 update history page and note the version number you’d like to revert to.
Press Windows + S, type cmd, right-click Command Prompt, and select Run as administrator.

In the Command Prompt window, enter the following commands one after the other :
1. cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun

 2. *officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.xxxxx.yyyyy* (replace the version number with the one you want) e.g officec2rclient.exe /update               user updatetoversion=16.0.17425.20176

Office will download and install the specified version. This may take a few minutes.
Then open PowerPoint and go to File > Account to confirm the version number.

Answer 2

I'm glad Peter's suggestions helped. I've marked that post as an Answer so other people with the same issue can find it more easily.

The people at MS who make product decisions don't generally monitor this forum. If you'd like to make suggestions/complaints, please use the feedback feature in PPT. Help | Send feedback OR (in some versions) File | Send Feedback gets you there.

Answer 3

Thanks again for that, could you please let me know some time later on down the line whether or not this change will be permanent, because I have used this program for years and I don't want to ever have to stop.

They already decided that removing scrolling buttons on menus was obsolete and removed that for good, because not enough people demanded to have that returned. But that's just a minor UI change. But changing how functions in a program work for good is a different matter.

I rolled back Office just now, and everything is back to the way it was. The scrolling buttons on menus have even returned. I'm not updating it any more for fear of losing more buttons or functions along the way. You have made my day, and fixed my issue. I really appreciate that Thank you for understanding.

Answer 4

Anonymous

Thanks so much. Maybe you could let Microsoft know as well, before this change happens to other audio file formats.

Also I know how to disable further office updates, but how would I roll back to a previous version of Office once I've done that?

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Answer 5

Hi George,

Thanks for posting in the Microsoft community.

You're finding that when you insert WMA audio files into PowerPoint, the program automatically compresses them, which reduces their quality. This didn’t happen before, and now PowerPoint prompts you to "upgrade" media files even in older presentations something you don’t want or need.

This is due to a recent Microsoft Office update. PowerPoint now tries to improve compatibility by embedding linked media, converting older formats like WMA, compressing audio to reduce file size. Unfortunately, this compression reduces audio quality, especially for high-quality WMA files.

Please try the following steps to work around the issue:

>> Click “No” when prompted to upgrade media

This stops PowerPoint from converting or compressing your audio files.

>> Insert audio as a linked file

This avoids compression entirely. You’ve already identified this as a workaround, and while not ideal, it’s currently the most effective way to preserve audio quality without converting formats.

>> Convert WMA to WAV or high-bitrate MP3

You mentioned you don’t want to convert thousands of files and that’s completely understandable. This step is only here in case you ever decide to batch-convert a small subset for critical presentations.

>>If this behavior only started recently, you can roll back to an earlier version of Office that didn’t include this change:

In PowerPoint, go to File > Account > Update Options > Disable Updates.

Finally, submit feedback to Microsoft via Help > Feedback in PowerPoint.

Request an option to disable automatic audio compression just like the existing setting for images. The more users report this, the more likely Microsoft is to address it.

Best wishes,

Peter | Microsoft Community Support

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PowerPoint updating and compressing audio files upon inserting them

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