PowerPivot in Excel StandAlone 2013 - MS Store rep said "not included"

[christoph]

Hi,

I use Excel's PowerPivot constantly at work. The time has finally come that I need to be using it at home as well to sometimes complete work from home. I only have Office 365 Home and am fully aware that PowerPivot is not included. So, research on here and online also taught me that I need to buy the standalone version of Excel 2013. Since I wanted to have physical media, I walked into our local MS store and wanted to have it confirmed that PowerPivot was included in the boxed Excel 2013 standalone version. I was told it wasn't and that it's only available with the professional versions of Office 365. Naturally, I put the box back down and walked out. So,

1. Is it or is it not included in the Excel 2013 standalone version? I see all these posts around September and October about it last year but then it gets quiet on the net and no new information is posted anywhere. Can somebody please confirm that PowerPivot is indeed included in a boxed standalone version of Excel 2013 as sold in any MS store (really mean a MS store, not BestBuy or OfficeDeport or else)? Or do I have to download it from the MS Online Store or Amazon?

2. Why is MS so quiet about this? Just curious and figured maybe somebody would know. It's not even mentioned on the box, you can't find ANYTHING on any MS site that confirms this. It's all third-party sites that state that it is available as part of the standalone version. It's such a fantastic add-in, I don't understand why MS is not promoting it more. Does anybody know?

3. Since I have the full Office 365 Home installed, can I simply install the standalone Excel version "on top of it" (assuming anybody can confirm 1. above with 'yes')? Or do I have to do some tricks to have the standalone version running parallel with Office 365 Home installed?

Certainly appreciate your help. If these three questions are answered in a separate thread, I apologize and would appreciate a re-link to it.

Thanks,
Christoph

 

[Zack Barresse]

Hi, welcome to the board!

MS employees are NOTORIOUS for not knowing what the hell they're talking about. It's a very big machine, and sometimes it seems they are only employed there because Best Buy was full up. It does indeed come with Excel standalone - but not retail Office. The standalone (Excel 2013) sold on Amazon will have it included. You'll just need to run updates, but they've finally worked it into that SKU. It should be included if you purchase from an MS store, although they're all the same - you may find better deals online though.

I wouldn't say MS is quiet about this. It's a huge win for us Excel-ers. It originally wasn't in standalone, and because we made a LOT of noise, it was added into the standalone SKU. So it was done after the fact, which causes confusion in its own right. Add on top of that how utterly confusing everything Office 365 is, and it's hard to tell what's what - even for MS employees. The fact is they just probably don't know, because it's a relatively small niche which was filled, albeit by very loud and proud individuals.

You can uninstall Excel from your home computer and then re-install Excel standalone. You'll need to go into your control panel, select your Office ProPlus 2013, click Change, then remove Excel. I'm not 100% on this though, because I've never heard of anyone doing it, and the installer package for O365 is web-based, so it's not identical to an MSI-based install.

Additionally to purchasing standalone Excel, you can also get Power Pivot two other ways: Office 365 Pro Plus subscription and volume licensing. Also, you only need Power Pivot to create/manage/edit a data model. Any flavor of Excel 2013 can work with and view [consume] a file with a [Power Pivot] data model.

 

[christoph]

Thank you so much, Zack, for the info and also the welcome! I had the feeling that this was the case and the MS store employee didn't know what he was talking about. However, when I had the $120 box of Excel in my hand and he said "it isn't", I got nervous and dropped it.

Thank you again!
Christoph

 

[Zack Barresse]

Understandably so! One thing this whole [Excel 2013/Power Pivot] debacle has taught me, is that us Excel-ers need to stick together.

 

[jg70124]

You can uninstall Excel from your home computer

This is no longer possible, at least with O365 Home - you can uninstall the whole package, but not individual elements.

So it looks like the only remaining way for an individual to get PowerPivot is through an Office ProPlus subscription, at $12/month.