where is it? Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application

Referencing the Office XP PIAs Unlike standard COM interop assemblies, you cannot browse to a PIA and set a reference to it as you would with other assemblies in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment (IDE). Instead, you set a reference to an existing COM type library; if a PIA exists in the GAC for that COM type library, the PIA will be silently referenced instead. To demonstrate this behavior, perform the following steps on a computer with Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft Word 2002 PIA installed: Start Visual Studio .NET. On the File menu, point to New, and click Project. The New Project dialog box appears. Click the Visual Basic Projects folder in the Project Types pane. Click Console Application in the Templates pane. Type OfficeXPPIATest in the Name box. Type or browse to a location in the Location list that is easy for you to remember. Click OK to create the solution. On the Project menu, click Add Reference. The Add Reference dialog box appears. Click the COM tab. Select the Microsoft Word 10.0 Object Library entry in the list of COM type libraries. Click Select to select the Word object library entry. Click OK to add the reference. In the Solution Explorer window, in the References folder, click the Word reference. In the Properties window, notice that the Path property is set to a string similar to C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word\...\Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word.dll. This indicates that the Word PIA is being used instead of forcing Visual Studio .NET to create its own COM interop assembly.

PJ.vandeSande at 2007-9-10 >

Thanks for the information - I was pulling hair on this one.

<FLAME>

MICROSOFT!!!! What the heck were you drinking the night before you hacked this one?

and not only do you create this incredible HACK you proceed to not document it. Either that or you documented it is such an incredibly obscure place that you might as well have just written it on toilet paper and then used it.

</FLAME>

now I feel better - only 3 hours of wasted time ;-<

SPersels at 2007-9-10 >

Office XP PIAs can be found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C41BD61E-3060-4F71-A6B4-01FEBA508E52&displaylang=en

Lexicore at 2007-9-10 >