Question: How many different versions of Power BI Desktop might you have installed at one time?
Answer: Three (or more)
What happens when you have different versions installed, and how can you make sure that you use the right version for a given Power BI report file?
An issue came up this week when I tried to open a Power BI Desktop file (.PBIX) from File Explorer and Power BI Desktop told me I was headed down a dark and difficult path. Well, not exactly, but it displayed the following message:
Unable to open document
The queries were authored with a newer version of Power BI Desktop and might not work with your version.
Please install the latest version to avoid errors when refreshing.
When I clicked the Close button, rather than leaving me to correct with what seemed to be a complicated and potentially damaging situation, Power BI Desktop starts up and continues to tell me about the perils that lie ahead, in this message:
Report layout differences might exist
This Power BI report file may have some features that aren’t available in Power BI Desktop until the next release.
If you need to see the latest version you worked with on the web (app.powerbi.com), please view the report there. We’re sorry for any inconvenience.
As an unsuspecting user, I might be confused but at least I can rest assured that the application developers at Microsoft who write these warning messages are thoughtful and apologetic.
What’s going on?
In addition to the reports I author and deploy to the Power BI cloud service, I also create reports for my on-premises Power BI Report Server. Report Server requires an older version of Power BI Desktop which can be installed from the menu on the report server. This older version of desktop (October 2017 in my case) is sandboxed by Windows so it doesn’t get upgraded by the latest Power BI Desktop installer when I update it from the PowerBI.com. In Control Panel, you can see both installations:
The problem I experienced was a result of installing the older desktop version for PBRS after the newest version. The file extensions (PBIX and PBIT) are already associated with whatever version of desktop is installed and registered with Windows. The remedy is quite simple… just reinstall the latest version of Power BI Desktop and perform a Repair if you already have that version installed.
This next part is more informational than problematic but it actually is possible to have additional “versions” or packages of Power BI Desktop installed. If you install Power BI Desktop from the Windows 10 Microsoft Store, you get a sandboxed installation that runs in a restricted “safe” security context. This is a good option for users in a restricted corporate network environment who don’t have local admin access to their computer/ In most cases, they can install the application this way. As you can see, I actually have three separate Power BI Desktop installations.
These are all 64 bit builds of the desktop applications so I could even install 32 bit builds of Power BI Desktop as well. I would only do that for compatibility with an old 32 bit database driver or if I were running on an old 32 bit Windows machine, which is not an ideal scenario. Keep in mind that 32 bit applications can only use a limited amount of RAM (about 3.7 GB minus some system overhead).
Impossible for big players on market. In my corpo I can install NOTHING (no admin rights) on my laptop. And good luck with deal with IT Departament…