Excel 2016 Stability in a Virtual Machine – Advanced Topic

This is an Advanced Topic that rarely affects most users; however, since it was asked, we are reporting our test findings.

If you’re running your Windows Client OS in a virtual Machine (VM) (e.g. you’re running Windows 7 x86 as a Hyper-V Guest OS), the VM Settings may affect the stability of Excel 2016 running in the VM. If you are running any Hyper-V versions earlier than 2012, be sure to update Integration Services in the Guest VM. Configure your VM to run 1 CPU and 2048MB RAM. Try increasing RAM and CPU if desired, but if you run into any Excel 2016 stability issues (typically observed during Excel startup), revert to 1 CPU and 2048MB RAM.