How can I check programmatically if Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel is available for use with VB?

Question

First, using VB, how can I check programmatically if Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel is available in the Excel Object Library ? Then, if not, is there a way to add it to the reference programmatically ?

The code would be for a VB executable to access values in a spreadsheet, and calling some of the spreadsheet functions as well, if possible.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7123196/how-to-check-programatically-if-ms-excel-exists-on-a-pc — Siddharth Rout, Jul 16 '14 at 18:29

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 16 '14 at 18:31

1

Try creating the Excel object dynamically. If it succeeds, then Excel is available for use.

Private Function CreateObject(ByVal fullyQualifiedClassName As String) As Object
    Dim nspc As String = fullyQualifiedClassName.Substring(0, fullyQualifiedClassName.LastIndexOf("."c))
    Dim o As Object = Nothing
    Try
        For Each ay In Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetReferencedAssemblies()
            If (ay.Name = nspc) Then
                o = Assembly.Load(ay).CreateInstance(fullyQualifiedClassName)
                Exit For
            End If
        Next
    Catch
    End Try
    Return o
End Function

answered Jul 16 '14 at 18:31

Robert Harvey

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What should a call to this function look like, what gets passed as fullyQualifiedClassName ? – Platypus Jul 17 '14 at 14:34
A fully qualified class name is `Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel`. – Robert Harvey Jul 17 '14 at 15:55

How can I check programmatically if Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel is available for use with VB?

1 Answers1