How to use App-V to virtualize Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot for Excel 2010

 

GrayAndYellowGears5Hi all! This is Vladimir from the App-V team and today I wanted to give you a quick tip on how you can virtualize PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel 2010 using Microsoft App-V. I recently worked an issue where we were trying to virtualize the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot for Microsoft Excel 2010 add-in along with an Office 2010 SP1 package. Trying to sequence PowerPivot with Office 2010 seemed to work okay, and when we launched Excel 2010 while still in the sequencing process the PowerPivot tab was visible and seemed to function properly, however the add-in was not visible after the package was deployed to the App-V 4.6 SP1 clients. Once deployed, when Excel 2010 was launched, the PowerPivot tab was not visible and was not available to add via the Excel add-on manager.

So what’s going on? Long story short, to get this to work you need to sequence the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot add-in as an independent package and then use the App-V Application Virtualization Dynamic Suite Composition Tool to integrate the packages so they can be part of the same virtual environment.

Here’s are the steps to sequence the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot  add-in:

1. Install Microsoft Office 2010 SP1 x86 locally on your clean sequencer machine.

2. Start monitoring using the App-V 4.6 SP1 Sequencer and install the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot for Excel 2010 add-in using the defaults (download: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=7609).

3. While still at the Installation Phase of the App-V Sequencer wizard, start Excel 2010 and verify that the add-in tab is available and functioning.

4. Save the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot add-in package.

Now just use the App-V Application Virtualization Dynamic Suite Composition Tool (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=6655) to set your existing Microsoft Office 2010 package as the primary package and the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 - PowerPivot add-in package as the secondary. You also can set the secondary package as mandatory so that when the Office 2010 package is launched, the PowerPivot package will be streamed as well.

Vladimir Petrosyan | Support Escalation Engineer | Microsoft CTS Management and Security Division

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