Considerations before installation

Most aspects of deploying think-cell are the same on both supported platforms (Windows or macOS). If there is some variation in detail, this is mentioned directly in the text. The mechanics of the initial installation and the distribution mechanism of configuration settings differ more substantially and are described in separate sections. If you only administer think-cell on Windows, feel free to skip the installation section for macOS, and vice versa.

Workstation prerequisites

On Windows, think-cell works with Microsoft Office 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, or 2024 for Windows, with at least PowerPoint and Excel installed. think-cell also works with the fully installed versions and Click-to-Run versions of the desktop Office apps in Office 365.

On Mac, think-cell works with Microsoft Office 2019, 2021, or 2024 for Mac, and macOS Big Sur (11) or later. think-cell also works with the fully installed versions of the desktop Office apps in Office 365.

The following components must be installed:

• Microsoft Office Excel
• Microsoft Office PowerPoint
• Visual Basic for Applications (from Office Shared Features)

The installation of think-cell requires less than 300 MB of disk space.

Language

The think-cell user interface is available in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. During the installation, think-cell uses the language corresponding to the regional settings of the operating system. After installation, think-cell uses the same language as in the menus and dialogs of the installation of Microsoft Office.

All supported languages are included in the same, unified installation package. If a language is not yet supported by think-cell, English is used. It is not possible to alter the automatic language selection behavior.

Automatic updates

think-cell tightly integrates with PowerPoint and Excel to offer its streamlined user interface and wealth of functionality. Due to the tight integration, it is not possible to guarantee compatibility with unknown future changes to Microsoft Office. Therefore:

1. Major version updates, i.e., switching from PowerPoint 2016 to 2019 or from 2019 to a future version, will always require the most recent think-cell version.
2. For Click-to-Run editions of Office, which includes Office 365, most updates will require a think-cell update (also see Differences between Office 365 channels).
3. Security updates for MSI-based editions of Microsoft Office on Windows will usually not require a think-cell update. However, this cannot be guaranteed and occasionally a security update for Microsoft Office will require a think-cell update for compatibility.

think-cell has built-in automatic update support. In this way, we ensure compatibility with any Microsoft update and provide new features. When PowerPoint or Excel are started, the software checks for a new version. If there is one, the software attempts to install the update.

If available, think-cell uses the Microsoft Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to download updates on Windows. BITS automatically frees bandwidth when the user needs it, and also recovers gracefully from network interruptions common in mobile computing environments. Each update is approximately 150 MB in size.

All files that are executed and installed by the automatic update are digitally signed by think-cell. The integrity of the update is verified against a self-signed certificate that is included in the version of think-cell currently installed.

Automatic updates always keep the installation location and update think-cell in place.

Differences between Office 365 channels

For the Microsoft 365 licensing plans including Office 365, Microsoft offers various so-called update channels which deploy updates with varying frequency and delay. think-cell supports all update channels of Office 365. We check for Microsoft updates to all channels every night, and if there is an update that conflicts with think-cell, we immediately start working on a corresponding think-cell update. In the following it is assumed that think-cell’s automatic updates are enabled.

Here is an overview of the quality of service you can expect from think-cell when using each of the channels:

Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel
(Default in Microsoft 365 Enterprise (Office 365 ProPlus) for tenants created before June 9, 2020) and

Monthly Enterprise Channel
and

Current Channel
(Default in Microsoft 365 Business, Home, Personal; default in Microsoft 365 Enterprise for new tenants created on or after June 9, 2020): We initiate an automatic think-cell update before Microsoft’s update, so no outage of think-cell should occur.

Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview)
and

Current Channel (Preview):
The think-cell update is available for download, but we do not always trigger a timely automatic update. When a conflict occurs and you have error reporting enabled, the update will be installed automatically. If you have error reporting disabled and support email not redirected (see Troubleshooting and critical errors), and the user selects Request Support in the error dialog, they will get an automatic email response even outside of our business hours including a link to the update download.

Beta Channel
We make the think-cell update available as soon as possible after the Microsoft update, but outages may occur. Once the think-cell update is ready, the distribution mechanism is the same as for Preview channels.