How to read in Excel file in Win7 64bit?

Question

Hi,

I have a c# application that I have moved to a 64bit machine. This application reads in an Excel file for some data input. I would like to build this project as 64bit. Is there any way to have my program read in this file? I find it hard to believe that there is no way to use and Excel file as input into a 64bit app. I have installed Office 2010 64 bit as well as the 2010 Office System Driver Beta: Data Connectivity Components with no luck. I'm sure that I'm just missing something really simple.

thanks!! Bill

Answer 1

The Jet OLEDB driver is not supported on Windows x64. Instead you could use the Office Interop library. Add reference to the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel assembly and try the following code:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var file = @"C:\work\test.xlsx";
        var excel = new ApplicationClass();
        var workbook = excel.Workbooks.Open(file);
        var worksheet = (_Worksheet)workbook.Worksheets.Item[1];

        // read the value of the first row, first column
        var value = ((Range)worksheet.Cells[1, 1]).Value;
        Console.WriteLine(value);

        workbook.Close(false, file, null);
        Marshal.ReleaseComObject(workbook);
    }
}

Note that you will need to have Excel installed.