OK, that didn't work. Not only that, but the slideshow thing in general didn't work for several reasons.
The "Save as TXT File" option saves it as a *.lst file. It includes the full path of the image when you add it to the slideshow (in this case , it was my C: drive). No problem, thought I, so I removed the path and left just the file name. Since the images would be in the same volume and directory as the program file, no path would be needed. Well apparently the *.lst file needs to be opened for writing by Irfanview. Since it is on a CD, it is read-only. No luck.
Theoretically, it would be possible to create a slideshow.bat file that would copy the entire contents of the CD to the hard drive and remove the read-only attribute, but now we're getting complicated.
Also, the second OPEN= line did not work. I guess if you were going to build the batch file anyway, you could throw in a command somewhere to play that sound file while you're at it.
I still stand by my first post, however, as that one does work. It's just not nice and automated like. It does pop up a picture with back and forward buttons so they can flip through all the images in the directory, though.