Do I need Excel to be installed for spreadsheet queries using the OleDB provider?

Question

I am working on some software that uses OleDB to open a .xls file, request some data, and populate a data set with the results. Now I am considering using this software for systems that do not have Excel. Will my software be able to read spreadsheets?

This xls file contains 1000 configuration parameters that my software uses. If this setting will not work on computers without Excel, I assume that my next best way is to convert the xls file to an XML file and read it using XML services.

Answer 1

You do not need to connect to office or office data, you can use the Jet engine for OleDB, which is installed on almost all Windows machines. However, this is a very old technology and is limited to 32 bits.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175866.aspx

If you want to completely avoid this mess, switch to the app.config file or the properties file, and you can get a clean .net solution.

Answer 2

Client computers must have full office or Office Data Connectivity components installed .