MAC Excel Solver Unable to Find The Solutionīut as it turns out, my students running on MAC laptops cannot get the same results that I did. Sounds like all grounds covered? Or at least that is what I thought. Prior to this, I made sure it works on my PC, my wife’s MS Surface, my friend’s Windows-based laptop and MAC Book. Well, I was illustrating how to use Microsoft Excel and Solver to perform a simple portfolio optimization comprising 2 assets. Everything went as planned until I was on the topic of portfolio optimization. I just recently delivered a course on quantitative techniques to investing.