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What Is Power BI?

Power BI is a data visualization and business intelligence tool from Microsoft, first released in 2015. It makes data analysis and reporting easier for everyone, not just technical experts.

We're using Power BI for this data visualization course because, as of 2025, it's the most popular BI tool in the world.

... but it does mean we need to use Windows. ~~shudder~~.

Oh come on now, Windows is fine.

Windows is huge in the business intelligence, accounting, and finance world, so it makes sense that Power BI is too.

With Power BI, you can connect to data from many different sources, transform it, and create dashboards and reports that help you understand your data quickly. Power BI is best known for:

Interactive dashboards
Ease of use
Integration within the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem
Data connectivity
Sharing and collaboration
Automation

It gives you the tools to explore, understand, and share information confidently – all in one seamless, interactive platform. In our opinion it's the best tool for learning real world data visualization skills.

Let's install Power BI Desktop on your machine!

Assignment

There are three main ways to download and install Power BI Desktop, which is the free version of Power BI that we'll use in this course:

From the Microsoft Store (recommended)
- Open the Microsoft Store app on your computer.
- Search for Power BI Desktop.
- Click Get or Install and let it download automatically.
This version updates automatically whenever a new release is available.
Via WinGet, Windows' built-in package manager
- Open PowerShell and run the following command:
```
winget install --exact --id Microsoft.PowerBI --source winget
```
- Enter Y to accept the license agreement if prompted.
- Approve the administrator elevation prompt.
- Wait for WinGet to report that Power BI was successfully installed.
From the Microsoft website
- Go to the Power BI Desktop product page.
- Click "Advanced download options"; this should open a new page in the browser. (Clicking "Download now" would just launch the Microsoft Store.)
- Select a language (preferably English) and click Download to grab the .exe file.
- Run the downloaded executable and follow the on-screen installation steps.

Only the Microsoft Store version updates automatically. If you install via WinGet or a manually downloaded .exe, Power BI will notify you when an update is available. WinGet users can also run winget upgrade --exact --id Microsoft.PowerBI.

Once Power BI is installed and you've verified that you can open the program, submit the CLI tests.