PowerPoint 2002 / XP crashes when renumbering slides
If you have any loaded add-ins that create new toolbars every time PowerPoint starts up, an obscure bug in PowerPoint 2002 can cause it to crash when you do File, Page Setup and change the starting slide number.
If so disable the add-in temporarily.
Adobe Acrobat is the most common add-in that triggers this bug (but note that it's a PowerPoint bug, not anything that Adobe caused). Here's how to temporarily disable Acrobat's PDFMaker add-in:
Search the \Program Files\Adobe folder and folders below it for *.PPA files.
Rename them from *.PPA to *.PPB then restart PowerPoint.
You should now be able to change the starting number without problems.
Name the *.PPB files back to *.PPA and restart PowerPoint to restore your Acrobat toolbar.
Search terms:crash,xp,2002,number,renumber