Slide shows can be configured to run continuously, hands-free, without manual intervention, by setting up 4 things:

Each of these settings are described here:

When applying animations to various shapes on PowerPoint slide, ensure that the animations are set up to start After Previous (to run the animations sequentially) or With Previous (to run the animations together). This means the animations do not wait for mouse clicks or keyboard input for those to move the slide show forward.

Note that this does not apply to triggered animations as they do not interfere normal slide show flow although triggered animations do not make much sense for hands-free continuous operation.

When applying slide transitions, PowerPoint allows you to set the slide transitions to happen on mouse clicks (or keyboard input) as well as automatically after a specific time. You need to set up the slide transitions to perform automatically after some amount of time.

Note that this setting also makes the animations go automatic but step 1 ensures that the automatic animations are set up intentionally.

Slide shows that need to run continuously should also be configured to loop again continuously so that they do not end after the last slide gets displayed. You can set up slide shows to loop continuously as follows:

PowerPoint, in its default settings, saves AutoRecovery information every 10 minutes. This needs to be turned OFF for running slide shows continuously. You can do that as follows:

Now you are all set to run the slide shows continuously through PowerShow in total hands-free operation.