ActiveWindow VBA commands to access active slide does not work on PowerPoint 2013 running on virtual machine

Question

I just started using VBA a few days ago. I noticed that some few commands do not seem to work on my computer and I was wondering whether this is due to my computer setup.

I am using VBA in PowerPoint 2013 on Windows 7 run via VMware Fusion (virtual machine) on MacOSX. I need to create a dynamic reference to the active slide, but several way of doing so broke my code:

Set oSl = Application.ActiveWindow.View.Slide

(as suggested here)

Set oSl = ActivePresentation.Slides(ActiveWindow.View.Slide.SlideNumber)

(as suggested here)

Set oSl = ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.SlideIndex

(as suggested here)

None of these worked for me. Since I just started using VBA I simply inserted Message Boxes after different parts of the code, and looked at when the boxes where no longer triggered - in this case always after the "oSl =" line that I replaced with the various other approaches delineated above. Additionally,

Set oSl = ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange(1)

also broke my code (as discussed here)

What DID work so far was

Set oSl = ActivePresentation.SlideS(1)

All the methods above that didn't work (but should) contain "ActiveWindow". It would be great if you could advise on whether there are errors in my approach to selecting the active slide or whether the issue might be that VBA can't access the "ActiveWindow" properly because my PowerPoint runs on a virtual machine. Should that be the case, is there another way to select the currently active slide without using ActiveWindow?

EDIT: I am trying to apply this to the following code in PowerPoint. Basically what I want to do is replace the line "oSl = ActivePresentation.SlideS(1)" with a line of code that won't always target slide 1 but whichever slide is currently active. My question is not so much HOW to do this - there are plenty of instructions on how to do it online. My question is WHY these approaches are not working for me.

Sub SelectionMacro()

Dim oSl As Slide
Dim oSh As Shape
Dim aArrayOfShapes() As Variant
Dim ShapeX As Shape
Dim N As Long
Dim Temp As Variant
Dim J As Long
Dim FadeEffect As Effect

Set oSl = ActivePresentation.SlideS(1)

'This section creates an array of all pictures on Slide1 called
'"aArrayOfShapes"
For Each oSh In oSl.Shapes
    If oSh.Type = msoPicture Then
        On Error Resume Next
        Debug.Print UBound(aArrayOfShapes)
        If Err.Number = 0 Then
            ReDim Preserve aArrayOfShapes(1 To UBound(aArrayOfShapes) + 1)
        Else
            ReDim Preserve aArrayOfShapes(1 To 1)
        End If
        Set aArrayOfShapes(UBound(aArrayOfShapes)) = oSh
    End If
Next

'This section creates a random index number within the bounds of the
'length of aArrayOfShapes and assigns the shape with that index number
'to the Shape object ShapeX
Randomize
NumberX = Int((UBound(aArrayOfShapes) - (LBound(aArrayOfShapes) - 1)) * Rnd) + LBound(aArrayOfShapes)
Set ShapeX = aArrayOfShapes(NumberX)

'This section shuffles aArrayOfShapes
For N = LBound(aArrayOfShapes) To UBound(aArrayOfShapes)
    J = CLng(((UBound(aArrayOfShapes) - N) * Rnd) + N)
        If N <> J Then
            Set Temp = aArrayOfShapes(N)
            Set aArrayOfShapes(N) = aArrayOfShapes(J)
            Set aArrayOfShapes(J) = Temp
        End If
    Next N

'This section loops through all Shapes in aArrayOfShapes and
'fades them out one by one EXCEPT for ShapeX
For Each Shape In aArrayOfShapes
    If ShapeX.Name <> Shape.Name Then
    Set FadeEffect = oSl.TimeLine.MainSequence.AddEffect _
    (Shape:=Shape, effectid:=msoAnimEffectFade, trigger:=msoAnimTriggerAfterPrevious)
        With FadeEffect
        .Timing.Duration = 0.5
        .Exit = msoTrue
        End With
    End If
Next Shape

End Sub

Answer 1

I had similar problem.

Try to replace:

ActiveWindow.View.Slide.SlideNumber 

with:

ActivePresentation.SlideShowWindow.View.Slide.SlideIndex 

It was what I needed in my project, maybe it helps you.