Locate Your Version in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows

Where is PowerPoint 2010?

You cannot locate PowerPoint 2010 on your computer? Or you are not sure if there are any other versions of PowerPoint on your computer, maybe an older version? Yes, we know that this can happen, although it does sound a little strange. You may be unable to locate PowerPoint, mainly in scenarios such as these:

• In an office, where system administrators are responsible for what's installed on your computer, and they insist that you have PowerPoint on your system, but you cannot find it!
• You bought a new desktop or laptop that came with a license for Microsoft Office. Even that's not a sure reason for you to have PowerPoint installed, as we'll explore later in this article.
• Or maybe you just lost the shortcut that used to launch PowerPoint.

There may be some more reasons, but we suggest you follow these steps to find out if you have PowerPoint 2010 (or an older version) installed on your system or not. Since PowerPoint 2010 installs on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, we provide instructions for all three Operating Systems.

For users of Windows XP

1. Choose Start | Run, as show in Figure 1. You can also skip this step by typing the Windows + R shortcut keys together on your keyboard.
2. 
   Figure 1: Run command within Windows XP
2. This opens the Run dialog box as shown in Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Run dialog box
3. Type powerpnt.exe without the quotes in the dialog box, as shown in Figure 3, and click OK.
4. 
   Figure 3: Run PowerPoint
4. If you have PowerPoint installed, it should launch now, otherwise you'll see an error message. In case a version of PowerPoint that is different from the one you were expecting launched, we suggest you follow the steps explained later in this tutorial.

For users of Windows 7 and Vista

1. Choose Start | All Programs | Accessories | Run, as shown in Figure 4. You can also skip this step by typing the Windows + R shortcut keys together on your keyboard.
2. 
   Figure 4: Run command within Start menu of Windows 7
2. This opens the Run dialog box, as shown in Figure 5.
3. 
   Figure 5: Run dialog box in Windows 7
3. Type powerpnt.exe without the quotes in the dialog box, as shown in Figure 6, and click OK.
4. 
   Figure 6: powerpnt.exe typed in the Run dialog box
4. If you have PowerPoint installed, it should launch now, otherwise you'll see an error message. In case a version of PowerPoint that is different from the one you were expecting launched, we suggest you follow the steps explained later in this tutorial.

Which Version Do I Have?

That's a great question, the easiest way to find an answer is to bring up a list of programs installed on your computer. Bring up the Run dialog box as explained in the preceding section of this tutorial, and type appwiz.cpl, hit \ the Enter button. Depending upon your OS, the resulting dialog box may look a little different but you still get a list of all programs on your computer, since this is an alphabetical list, scroll down to where you can see all programs preceded by the words Microsoft Office, as shown in Figure 7.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Figure 7: List of all programs installed on your computer

Note that we have two versions of Microsoft Office installed on the system where this screen shot was sourced from (highlighted in red in Figure 7), yes, it is acceptable to have more than one version of Microsoft Office (and PowerPoint) to be installed on a single system. However only one of these can be the default PowerPoint version. Your default version is the one that launches when you type powerpnt.exe in the Run dialog box.

So how do you change the default version? Typically the last version installed is the default version, but there are other ways to change the defaults, and we explain these options in our Set as Default Version in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows.

I Have Word, Why Can't I Find PowerPoint?

And even if you have Microsoft Office installed doesn't mean you have PowerPoint as well. The reason is that there are some Office editions which do not include PowerPoint, this is not so true with newer releases like Office 2007 and 2010 where only the Starter edition does not include PowerPoint. If you have a version of Office 2010 without PowerPoint, the solution is to get a standalone copy of PowerPoint.