CODEWITHSUNDEEP
excelpowershellcomobject
user3120554
user3120554

Reputation: 703

Powershell - get excel object from process id

I have a running script that creates an excel object via

$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$ExcelApp = $Excel.Application

Although there are some issues with FULLY disabling an XLL I load so I wanted to try a different approach that I know others use manually

If I use below, I can create new instance of excel, and get the process info (pid, main window, etc). This should help with loading my XLL and disabling on quit

$test = Start-process excel.exe /x -PassThru

However I’m not sure how to get the -comObject from this

I have seen examples like

$Excel = [RunTime.Interopservices.Marshal]::GetActiveObject(‘Excel.Application’)

But I think this comes with the assumption that there can only be one excel whereas I want to ensure I get the excel ComObject only for a specific excel (for which I have the process info for)

Is there a way to tie the two together?

I’ve seen another way like

$Excel = [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::GetObject($null,’Excel.Application’)

But I’m not sure how to use this as replacing $null with my $test.Id won’t work

Can anyone help? How do I get the $Excel object from the $test process?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 251

Answers (1)

mklement0
mklement0

Reputation: 440162

I suggest taking the opposite route:

  • Every call to New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application creates a new EXCEL.exe process.

  • Assuming that no other process on your machine is making such calls concurrently, you can use the following to determine the EXCEL process associated with the most recent New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application call:

$Excel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application
$ExcelProcess = (Get-Process Excel | Sort-Object -Descending StartTime)[0]

Note:

  • There are ways to use COM APIs to get the same information, but they're much lower-level: see this blog post.

Upvotes: 0

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