Excel 2016 runs only under Windows 7, 8, and, of course, the new Windows 10 operating system. This means that if your PC is running the old Vista or XP versions of Windows, you must upgrade before you can successfully install and run Excel 2016.
Starting Excel from the Windows 10 Start menu
Windows 10 brings back the good old Start menu that many of you remember from much earlier Windows versions. The Windows 10 Start menu combines the straight menu from earlier days with the tile icons so prominent in Windows 8. To open this menu to launch Excel 2106, click the Windows icon on the taskbar or press the Windows key on your keyboard.
Then, click the All Apps button under the list of the Most Used applications in the menu and scroll down to Microsoft Office 2016 under the Ms in the list. Select the Expand button (with the caret pointing downward) to display your Office applications where you click Excel 2016.
You can pin an Excel 2016 button to the Windows 10 Start menu and/or its taskbar. This enables you to launch Excel simply by selecting this button. To pin a button, right-click the Excel 2016 menu item in the Start menu and then select the Pin to Start and/or Pin to Taskbar items in the displayed context menu.
Starting Excel from the Windows 10 Ask Me Anything text box
Instead of opening the Windows 10 Start menu and locating the Excel 2016 item there, you can launch the program by selecting this item from the Search the Web and Window text box. Simply type excel into the text box that appears to the immediate right of the Windows button on the taskbar and click Excel 2016 at the top of its result list.
If you want Cortana, the voice-activated online Windows assistant, to launch Excel 2016 for you, click the microphone icon in this text box (that is now called Ask Me Anything). When she displays the listening prompt, say "Cortana, start Microsoft Excel 2016."