Opening XLS file directly and getting params

J

jasonpaulplank

All,

I am working on a .NET application sued to "index" our many (+300)
Excel 2000 reports. The users log in and get a list of reports that
they are allowed to run. When they click on the "link", the app starts
the appropriate spreadsheet.

We are current doing this by running:
Excel.exe "FILENAME" /e/PARAMETERS

As you can see above, we are sending params (in this case, a connect
string) into the spreadsheet (not my design, I inherited it...) and
using some API calls that were found here to read the command line.
This is working correctly,

However, one of our users is complaining that, if they run 5
spreadsheets at the same time, they get 5 different instances of Excel.
I've noticed that if I just "shell" out to the XLS file (and don't put
EXCEL.EXE in front of it), then I get multiple spreadsheets in the same
instance of Excel; however, I can not read the parameters.

I guess I have two questions:
1. Can I read the command line if I call the XLS?

2. Is there a way to call EXCEL.EXE and have it re-use any existing
instances of Excel (if it is already running)?

Thanks
Jason
 
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