>>>Thanks for your help, its a pity about the LinqExcel util as I have a feeling my starter project ( parsing Excel files ) will grow horns and something like that would be very useful, how nice it would be to say "select * from my excel.xlsx"
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>>Not sure why LinqToExcel needs the Access engine - presumably so that it can piggy-back on some functionality in there. Maybe it's worth overcoming your dislike of Access and giving it a try (after all it's only the engine - and you won't really be aware of its presence :-} )
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>FWIW it's the same issue in SSIS - to read from Excel tables you need some version of the Access database engine.

Interesting - I didn't know that.....