Question: I am fairly new to VB.net and never used it for processing Office files.
Right now I have to look at Excel file and send some emails based on the data in the cells. I do not need to write anything to these files.
So far I have read quite a bit about PIAs and so far it looks that I have to design my application for particular Office version? 
Is there a way to write the application which could handle files created by different versions of MS Excel?
I would like to be able to process these files without Office being installed on the computer at all, is there any way to do it?

Answer: 
> 
> Don't need to install Office for getting data from excel file.
> 
> 
> 

But for getting data from EXCEL fileyou have to install OLEDB driver in your local machine as well as server if you are hosted your application on server.

> 
> You can download OLEDB driver from [MICROSOFT](http://www.microsoft.com/en-in/download/details.aspx?id=23734).
> 
> 
> 

```
 con = New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=" + YourEXCELFilePath + ";Extended Properties=Excel 12.0;")

con.Open()
atatable = con.GetOleDbSchemaTable(OleDbSchemaGuid.Tables, Nothing)
sheetname = datatable.Rows(0)("table_name").ToString
excelcomm = New OleDbCommand("select * from [" + sheetname + "]", con)
adexcel = New OleDbDataAdapter(excelcomm)
adexcel.Fill(Dataset)

```

After this code you will get excel sheet data in dataset.

Might this code can help you to get data from excel file.

(NOTE:this code is in vb.net)
you can use

1. [npoi](https://npoi.codeplex.com/)
2. [epplus](http://epplus.codeplex.com/)

which do not require excel