k2sarah wrote:
i have an excel file which i distribute to other people in the organization.
i will like to also distribute either an access database or sql express
database, and then have an excel add-in query the database. will this work,
if my end users do not have either access or sql server?

Yes. For both
You can distribute mdb file, and excel can read data using oledb.

Could you explain whah you mean 'distribute sql express database?