Let me describe my problem. Maybe you have the same, if you have googled for the error code, and found this page.

So, I’m downloading an old Excel file from a German webpage. The Excel file is in a spreadsheetML format, which is impossible to read from SSIS.

No worries, I can easily with a script task, convert the file to CSV, using C# and the Excel API. Like so

….
using MS.Internal.Xml;
using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;
…….

Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook wb1 ;
Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application wb2 =
new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Application();
wb2.DisplayAlerts = false;
wb1 = (Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Workbook)wb2.Workbooks._Open(filename, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing);

if (wb1.FileFormat == Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlFileFormat.xlXMLSpreadsheet)
{
wb1.SaveAs(filename.Replace(“.xls”,”.csv”) , Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlFileFormat.xlCSVMSDOS , Type.Missing, Type.Missing, false, false, Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlSaveAsAccessMode.xlNoChange,false,false,false,false,false);
}
else
{
wb2.Workbooks.Close();
}
wb2.Workbooks.Close();

Now I can read the data with a SSIS CSV data source. This Works fine, when I run my SSIS package from BIDS. When I put it in to production, and run the package with the SQL server agent, I get the following error:

Service cannot be started. System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A03EC): Microsoft Office Excel cannot access the file ‘c:\XXXX’. There are several possible reasons:
• The file name or path does not exist.
• The file is being used by another program.
• The workbook you are trying to save has the same name as a currently open workbook.

None of the above is my problem. I think I tried everything to find a solution to the problem. It turns out, that it is a bug in windows server 2008. There are some different solutions on the web, which include changing the registry values on the server.

Since I’m a consultant, and hence an expensive resource, I would like not to fuck anything up, playing around with registry values.

I found an easier fix however. Apparently, the folder C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop has been removed from Windows server 2008. It was present in windows server 2003.

When I created the folder, everything worked fine. Apparently the desktop folder is necessary, if you want to manipulate Excel files with code from the SQL server agent. Scary.

So, the answer: if you have problems manipulating office files from code executed from the SQL server agent on windows server 2008 create the folder C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\Desktop (C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\Desktop if it is 32bit)

That was it for now. Bye bye:-)