Install PowerPivot for Excel

Looking for help with Power Pivot in Excel 2013? Go to Power Pivot Help on Office.com.

SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel is an add-in to Excel 2010 that you can download from the Web and use to create or view a PowerPivot workbook. This topic contains the following sections:

Hardware and Software Requirements

Download and Install PowerPivot for Excel

Verify Installation

Hardware and Software Requirements

Computers used to create PowerPivot workbooks must meet the minimum hardware and software requirements for Office 2010.

Hardware Requirements

Component

Minimum Requirements

Processor

500 MHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor

RAM

2 to 4 GB of RAM. The add-in consumes approximately 25 MB of RAM. An additional 33 MB is consumed when the first PivotTable is added to the worksheet. Additional RAM is required for PowerPivot workbooks. The amount of RAM required will vary depending on the workbook you create.

PowerPivot supports files up to 2GB in size. The 64-bit version of PowerPivot enables you to work with up to 4GB of data in memory, and the 32-bit version enables you to work with up to 2GB of data in memory.

Disk space

100 MB disk space is required for the program files. Additional disk space is required to store data files. Although the files contain compressed data, you might require significant disk space if you create numerous workbooks that contain a very large amount of data. There is no way to know advance what your disk space requirements will be. Be sure to monitor disk space consumption as you create and save files to ensure you have sufficient space.

Software Requirements

PowerPivot for Excel can be installed on a computer that has 32-bit or 64-bit Excel 2010. If you have installed the 32-bit version of Excel, you must install the 32-bit version of PowerPivot for Excel. Likewise, if you have installed the 64-bit version of Excel, you must install the 64-bit version of PowerPivot for Excel.

Minimum Requirement

Operating system

Windows XP SP3 (32-bit only), Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 R2 with MSXML 6.0 (32-bit only), Windows Server 2008 SP2, or Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit only).

If you are using Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, you must also install the Platform Update that is available from https://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/971644.

If you are using a Windows server operating system, adding the Desktop Experience feature is recommended.

Windows features

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 (Install before installing Office)

Excel version requirements

Excel 2010 (32-bit or 64-bit) is required to install PowerPivot for Excel.

Office features

Office Shared Features must be installed with Excel 2010.

.NET Programmability Support, in Microsoft Excel, must also be installed.

Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime (Install before or after Office, but before using PowerPivot for Excel).

Note

Excel 2010 and the PowerPivot for Excel add-in are required for creating and using PowerPivot data in a workbook. Excel 2007 can be used to open a PowerPivot workbook and make style and formatting changes (for example, applying different colors or fonts), but you cannot use Excel 2007 to interact with a PivotTable or PivotChart that is based on PowerPivot data or to change the underlying data.

Recommendations

SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel can be used with either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of Excel 2010. However, the 64-bit versions of Excel and PowerPivot for Excel will support significantly more data than the 32-bit versions. In particular, you must use the 64-bit versions if you are importing more than one million rows or columns of data. Otherwise, if datasets are not particularly large, the 32-bit versions should provide acceptable performance. Note that the 32-bit version of Excel is required if you intend to use the Data Mining Add-ins for Excel.

Component

Recommended

Platform and operating system

Windows 7 (64-bit) or Windows Vista with SP1 (64-bit) Business Edition or Ultimate Edition.

Excel version requirements

Excel 2010 (64-bit)

Download and Install PowerPivot for Excel

  1. Go to the Microsoft Web site (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=258219).

  2. Download either the x86 (32-bit) or the x64 (64-bit) version of PowerPivot_for_Excel.msi installation program. The version of the add-in must correspond to the version of Excel on your computer. To determine whether you are using 32-bit or 64-bit software, look at the C:\Program Files folder.

    Download x86\PowerPivot_for_Excel_x86.msi if you have only “C:\Program Files”. Both the operating system and Office 2010 are 32-bit.

    Download x86\PowerPivot_for_Excel_x86.msi if you have both “C:\Program Files” and “C:\Program Files (x86)”, and the Excel.exe application file is found in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14”. The operating system is 64-bit, but the version of Office is 32-bit.

    Download x64\PowerPivot_for_Excel_amd64.msi if you have both “C:\Program Files” and “C:\Program Files (x86)”, and the Excel.exe application file is found in “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14”. Both the operating system and Office 2010 are 64-bit.

  3. Double-click the .msi file to start the Setup wizard. Click Run.

  4. Click Next to get started.

  5. Accept the license agreement, and then click Next.

  6. Enter your name, and then click Next.

  7. Click Install.

  8. Click Finish.

Verify Installation

Start Excel. After you install the add-in, you can open the PowerPivot window by clicking the PowerPivot tab on the Excel ribbon, and then clicking PowerPivot Window. An empty PowerPivot window opens over the Excel application window. You can then use the Import Wizard to add tables of data, create relationships between the tables, enrich the data with calculations and expressions, and then use this data to create PivotTables and PivotCharts. For more information about PowerPivot for Excel, see Learn About PowerPivot Capabilities and Take a Tour of the PowerPivot UI.

See Also

Concepts

Introducing PowerPivot for Excel