Ending An Excel Process

[hd95]

When I create an instance of an Excel Application class and then quit the app and release the object (like below) the EXCEL process is still running in the the task manager. I have built an algorithm to find the process id and kill the process through that but I shouldn't have to. Is there a cleaner solution?

        xlApp = New Excel.ApplicationClass
        'do stuff with excel app class instance

        xlApp.Quit()
        releaseObject(xlApp)


    Private Sub releaseObject(ByVal obj As Object)
        Try
            System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.ReleaseComObject(obj)
            obj = Nothing
        Catch ex As Exception
            obj = Nothing
        Finally
            GC.Collect()
        End Try
    End Sub

[R MacDonald]

I think that you are experiencing an "implicit reference" problem. If you don't assign an object created by an Office application (such as Excel) to an explicit variable, then an implicit variable is created for that object. This implicit variable continues to exist until the application itself is closed.

To solve this problem, search through the code in the section "'do stuff with excel app class instance" for all Excel properties and methods that return an object. Ensure that these objects are assigned to an explicit variable. You don't actually need to do anything with these variables. You can either set them to Nothing after you are finished with them, or just let them be garbage collected.

Cheers,
Randy

[Stewart Ross]

If you have modified a workbook when you issue a Quit command Excel will wait for the user to confirm whether or not to save the current workbook. If you are running Excel in non-visible mode it will simply hang, as it cannot be seen by the user at the time, and you will indeed end up with an instance of Excel in task manager.

You can resolve this by setting the DisplayAlerts property false before quitting:

xlApp.DisplayAlerts = False

-Stewart