Because of the memory leak described in KB31998, I am needing to find an
alternative to OLEDB for connecting to Excel and pulling data. I do not
need or want the spreadsheet to be open in Excel, but I need to be able to
query data from the spreadsheet even if it is open in Excel. I've used DDE
before, but I would really prefer not to ever go down that path again. My
application is a VC++ COM server, but I am open to the idea of having
another process written in VB.Net push data to it if that gives me
additional options.

Is there any way to work around OLEDB and DDE to accomplish my goals? I am
hoping that my potential will inspire you to help me reach it :)

Thanks,

Glenn Thimmes