How to Install Power Automate Desktop (Step-by-Step Guide)

How to Install Power Automate Desktop (Step-by-Step for Windows 10 & 11)

To install Power Automate Desktop on Windows 10 or 11, you have two paths. The Microsoft Store route is the quick one — no admin rights, updates run on their own. The MSI installer is the longer one — admin rights required, manual updates, but it includes the optional machine-runtime app for unattended flows. Whichever path you pick, you download, accept the licence, sign in with a Microsoft account, and you are ready to build your first desktop flow.

After 24 years of training in Singapore, I can tell you the install itself is the easy part. The part that trips people up on Day 1 of our Power Automate classes is the sign-in screen — personal account or work account — and the licence question that follows. So this guide walks through the install end-to-end. System requirements first, both install paths step by step, the decision of which one to pick, the sign-in mistake we see most often, what changes between Free and Premium, the honest answer to “can I install this on a Mac?”, how updates work, and the three install errors that show up again and again.

What Power Automate Desktop is, and how it differs from cloud Power Automate

Power Automate Desktop is Microsoft’s robotic process automation (RPA) tool for the Windows desktop. Think of it as a small, patient assistant sitting at your laptop. It watches what you do once — click here, copy that, paste it there — and then repeats it for you, perfectly, every time, while you go and do something else. It is the right tool when the work you want to automate is “I open this program, I click here, I type there”.

Cloud Power Automate (the web service at make.powerautomate.com) is a different product. It runs in Microsoft’s cloud and connects services to services — when a new email arrives, save the attachment to SharePoint; when a Forms response comes in, post to Teams. The two products talk to each other, but Power Automate Desktop is the one you install on your laptop. For a wider overview of the cloud side, see our guide to how to use Power Automate. The rest of this guide is about that desktop app.

System requirements before you click install

Before you download anything, run through the checklist.

• Operating system. Windows 10 (build 1809 or later) or Windows 11. Both Home and Pro editions work. Power Automate Desktop will not install on Windows 7, Windows 8, macOS, or Linux.
• Processor. 1 GHz dual-core minimum. Any laptop bought in the last six or seven years easily clears this.
• Memory. 2 GB RAM minimum, 4 GB is more comfortable. If you plan to record long flows that open Excel, a browser, and Outlook at the same time, 8 GB is what you actually want.
• Disk space. Around 1 GB free for the install itself, plus a bit more for flow recordings and screenshots.
• .NET 8 runtime. From version 2.55 onwards, Power Automate Desktop needs the .NET 8 runtime. The MSI installer downloads it for you if it is missing. On a machine with no internet access, you have to install the x86 and x64 runtimes manually before you run the installer.
• Microsoft Edge WebView2. The console uses WebView2 to render parts of the UI. Modern Windows 11 has it by default. Some locked-down Windows 10 images in big SG companies do not.
• Microsoft account. A personal Microsoft account (the kind you use for Outlook.com or Xbox) or a work or school Microsoft 365 account. You will sign in the first time the app opens.
• Internet access. Needed during install and sign-in. After that, Power Automate Desktop can run flows offline as long as the flow itself does not call cloud services.

If your laptop fails the OS or memory checks, fix that first. Installing on an underpowered machine will not error out, but flow recording will lag and the console will feel sluggish. Your boss won’t be impressed if the demo of your new automation takes longer than doing the task by hand.

How to install Power Automate Desktop step-by-step (MSI route)

The MSI installer is the original download Microsoft provides on the Power Automate website. It needs admin rights and is the right choice if you also want the machine-runtime app for unattended cloud-managed flows.

1. Open a browser and go to make.powerautomate.com > Get the desktop app. Or download the installer directly from https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2102613.
2. Save the file to your Downloads folder. The file is called Setup.Microsoft.PowerAutomate.exe.
3. Double-click the file to start the installer. If Windows asks for admin permission, click Yes.
4. The Power Automate for desktop setup window opens. Click Next on the welcome screen.
5. Choose the install location. The default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Power Automate Desktop. Most people should leave this alone.
6. On the components screen, decide which optional pieces you want.
   • Power Automate for desktop. The main app. Always on.
   • Machine-runtime app. Install this only if you plan to run unattended flows through the Power Automate cloud. For a single user learning the tool, leave it off.
   • UI automation in Java applets. Install only if you automate legacy Java desktop apps. Close any Java processes first.
7. Tick the licence box, accept Microsoft’s terms, and click Install.
8. The installer downloads the .NET 8 runtime if it is missing, then copies the program files across. The whole step takes one to three minutes on a normal Singapore broadband connection.
9. When the installer finishes, click Launch app. The Power Automate Desktop console opens and asks you to sign in.

That’s it. If the installer reports a failure halfway through, jump to the Troubleshooting section further down. Don’t try to install it a second time on top of the broken first attempt — that just buries the original error.

Microsoft Store route, and which install path to actually pick

The Microsoft Store route is shorter and does not need admin rights. It is the easier path on a personal laptop, or on a corporate laptop where IT has not given you local admin.

1. Open the Microsoft Store from the Start menu.
2. Search for Power Automate for desktop.
3. On the app page, click Get. The Store downloads and installs the app in the background.
4. Once the install finishes, click Open from the Store, or find Power Automate in the Start menu.

That is it. The Store handles updates automatically from this point on. Extremely easy.

Which one should you pick?

For most readers learning Power Automate Desktop for the first time, the Microsoft Store route is the right choice. Fewer prompts, no IT ticket, automatic updates. Switch to the MSI later if you need the machine-runtime app.

One important rule. Do not install both. Microsoft does not support running the Store version and the MSI version on the same machine. If you want to switch, uninstall the existing one from Settings > Apps first.

First launch: signing in and which Microsoft account to use

The first time Power Automate Desktop opens, it asks you to sign in. The screen looks simple, but it is the single most common cause of “I followed the install and now nothing works” on Day 1 of a Power Automate class. The question is which account to use.

• Personal Microsoft account (Outlook.com, Hotmail, Xbox account). Power Automate Desktop signs you in to the free, personal-use tier. You can build and run flows on your own machine. You will not see your company’s data, connectors, or shared flows.
• Work or school Microsoft 365 account. Power Automate Desktop signs you in to your organisation’s tenant. You see the connectors your admin has enabled, you can share flows with colleagues, and your licence level decides whether you get the free attended-only experience or Premium features.

If your goal is to follow a tutorial on your own laptop, sign in with a personal Microsoft account. If your goal is to automate work tasks that touch company systems — SharePoint, internal databases, the corporate Outlook — sign in with the work account. Don’t mix the two during install. Pick one and stay on it for the session.

After sign-in, the console loads with a left-hand panel (My flows, Examples) and a New flow button. You are installed. Everything from here is building flows — for a worked example, see our guide on how to send emails with Power Automate.

Free vs Premium: what changes the moment you sign in

The licence question matters because Power Automate Desktop looks the same on both tiers, but the things you are allowed to do are different.

Free (personal Microsoft account, or work account with no Premium licence):

• Build unlimited desktop flows on your own machine.
• Run flows in attended mode — you click Run, the flow runs on your screen while you watch.
• Use the standard connectors (Excel, files, browsers, web services with no auth).
• No cloud orchestration. No schedule. No team sharing through Power Automate.

Premium (Power Automate Premium licence assigned by your tenant admin):

• Everything in Free.
• Unattended runs — schedule flows to run on a machine on their own, no user logged in.
• Premium connectors — SAP, Oracle, Salesforce, custom HTTP with OAuth.
• Cloud orchestration — manage flow runs from the Power Automate portal, see logs, retry failed runs.
• Shared flows with role-based access.

To check your licence on the desktop app, click your account name (top right of the console) > About. The dialog shows the licence type detected for your account. If it says “Free” and you expected Premium, the licence has not been assigned in your Microsoft 365 tenant. Talk to your IT admin.

Here’s a small opinion from 24 years of training Singapore working professionals. If your company has not bought Premium licences yet, don’t stall. Build everything in the Free tier first. Prove that the flow works and saves real time on a real task — half an hour of copy-paste a day, gone. That working flow is the business case you take to your manager when you ask for a Premium licence. Managers can be quite demanding about ROI; a demo of something already saving time is the easiest yes to get. SkillsFuture Credits can also offset the cost of formal training if your company is on the fence about funding it.

“Can I install Power Automate Desktop on a Mac?”

The short answer is no. Power Automate Desktop is a Windows app. There is no native Mac or Linux build, and Microsoft has not announced one.

The longer answer is this. If you have a Mac and you want to run Power Automate Desktop, you run a copy of Windows on the Mac and install Power Automate Desktop inside that copy of Windows. The two practical ways:

1. Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or UTM. Virtualisation software that runs Windows 11 in a window on macOS. You install Windows 11 once, then install Power Automate Desktop inside the VM exactly the same way you would on a native Windows laptop. Parallels has a free trial; the licence is around USD 100 a year.
2. Boot Camp. Only available on older Intel Macs. Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3, M4) do not support Boot Camp; you must use a virtualisation app.

A third option, if your goal is only to run cloud Power Automate workflows, is to skip the desktop app and use make.powerautomate.com in a browser. That web app runs on a Mac browser without any tricks. But cloud Power Automate doesn’t record screen clicks the way the desktop app does. It is a different product, not a workaround for the desktop one.

How to update Power Automate Desktop

If you installed from the Microsoft Store, you can skip this section. Updates are automatic. The Store keeps the app current in the background, and there is nothing you need to do.

If you installed from the MSI:

1. Open Power Automate Desktop.
2. The console checks for updates on launch. When a new version is available, a yellow Update banner appears at the top.
3. Click Update. Windows asks for admin permission; click Yes.
4. The installer downloads the new version and applies it. You will be asked to close any running flow recordings before the update can complete.

From version 2.54 (April 2025), the MSI install also supports silent auto-updates that an admin can switch on for the whole organisation. If your IT team has enabled this, updates happen quietly in the background and you don’t see the banner.

To check which version you have right now, open the console, click your account name (top right) > About. The dialog lists the version number, for example 2.55.0.25060. Once you have a current version installed and your first flow built, the next useful skill is to share a Power Automate Desktop flow with a colleague.

Troubleshooting: install failures, WebView2 errors, sign-in loops

After running Power Automate classes for working professionals, I can tell you the same three install problems come up again and again. Here is how to fix each one.

Problem 1. MSI install fails with an admin-rights error. You are not running the installer as a local admin. Right-click Setup.Microsoft.PowerAutomate.exe and choose Run as administrator. If your Windows account simply does not have admin rights on the machine (common on corporate laptops in Singapore banks and large SMEs), switch to the Microsoft Store version, which does not need admin rights. If you must use the MSI for the machine-runtime app, raise an IT ticket asking IT to push the installer for you.

Problem 2. “WebView2 runtime not found”, or a blank console window after install. The Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime is missing or blocked by a proxy. Download the WebView2 Evergreen Standalone Installer from developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2, run it as admin, then relaunch Power Automate Desktop. If the download itself is blocked, the corporate proxy is the culprit. Ask IT to whitelist the WebView2 download URL.

Problem 3. Sign-in loop. The sign-in window opens, you enter your password, the window closes, and the console immediately asks you to sign in again. Of course you will be unhappy. This is almost always a Microsoft account mix-up. You signed in with a personal Microsoft account that has the same email as your work account, or your work tenant has a Conditional Access policy blocking the device. Sign out fully (account menu > Sign out), restart Power Automate Desktop, and sign in with one specific account — personal or work, not both. If the loop continues on a work account, ask your admin to check Conditional Access and device compliance.

If your error does not match any of these three, the Settings > Apps > Installed apps list will tell you whether the install half-completed. Uninstall the partial copy, restart the machine, then try the install again.

What to build first

Once Power Automate Desktop is installed and signed in, the fastest way to feel the value is to record one small task you do every day. Open the console, click New flow, give it a name, and use the Recorder to capture the clicks and keystrokes of a real task — saving an email attachment to a folder, renaming files, copying a value from one app to another. Save the flow, click Run, and watch it repeat what you just did.

That first working flow is the moment Power Automate Desktop stops being “another Microsoft product I installed” and becomes “the thing that gives me an hour back every week”. How good is that?

I hope you’ll like this guide. Do try it out. Install the app, build one small flow this week, and let the time it saves you make the case for the next one. If you’d like a structured classroom path with worked business examples, our Create Agentic AI Automations Without Coding course and our wider Digital Transformation with AI Tools programme both cover Power Automate alongside the cloud and AI tools that pair with it.

Course CTA: Learn Power Automate end-to-end in our two-day PowerApps and Power Automate Masterclass in Singapore — desktop flows, cloud flows, connectors, and a working business example. WSQ-funded.