title: powershell excel access without installing Excel
body: <p>I need to be able to read an existing (password protected) Excel spreadsheet (an .xlsx file) from Powershell - but I don't want to install Excel.  Every approach I've found assumes that Excel is installed on the workstation where the script is running.</p>
  
  <p>I've tried the Excel viewer, but it doesn't seem to work; it won't invoke properly.  I've looked at other solutions on stackoverflow, but all of them seem to want to update the excel spreadsheet, and I'm hoping I don't have to go that far.</p>
  
  <p>Am I missing something obvious?</p>