Virtual desktops · Standard plan
Serious spreadsheet work
Models that recalculate rather than just add up, several large workbooks open together, and add-ins that want memory of their own.
When Excel is the heavy application
Excel is light until it is not. A workbook with a few hundred thousand rows, a model with volatile formulas that recalculate on every change, three of those open at once with links between them, and an add-in or two that load their own data - that is a workload that makes an ordinary machine pause, and the pause is the whole problem.
Standard gives Excel fourteen gigabytes of memory and twelve virtual cores. The recalculation that used to be a coffee break becomes a moment, and everything else stays open around it.
What memory does for spreadsheets
- Large workbooks are held in memory in full; when memory runs out, Excel slows sharply.
- Several workbooks open together each want their own share.
- Power Query, Power Pivot and data add-ins load their models into memory as well.
- More cores let multi-threaded recalculation use them - Excel has done this for years, if the machine has the cores to give it.
Basic or Standard
If your spreadsheets are ordinary - budgets, lists, the monthly report - Basic is enough and costs less. The signal for Standard is a workbook you have learned to wait for, or one you have split into several because the machine could not hold it whole.
The plan for this: Standard
14 GB of memory, 12 virtual cores, 80 GB system drive and 50 GB data drive, for $30.95 a month, on a server-class host that keeps the desktop quick from any device. The other three packages are the same desktop with more or less memory and processing power.
Common questions
Will a 64-bit Excel install run on it?
Yes. It is a full Windows 11 machine with administrator rights, so 64-bit Office installs normally and can use the memory the plan provides.
Does more memory really help Excel?
For large workbooks, more than anything else. Excel slows down when it runs out of memory and starts working from disk far more often than it runs out of processor. Standard raises both, but the memory is what you notice.
Can I open the same workbook from home and the office?
Yes. The workbook is on the desktop, and the desktop is the same wherever you sign in from. Close the browser at the office and open it at home and the workbook is still open.
Start on Standard this afternoon
Sign up, check your email, open the link. A fast Windows 11 desktop on a server-class host, with no contract and no minimum term, and support included around the clock.
