I need to write a .bat script that will start excel on a specific file.
The hard part is that I don't know the exact path that excel is installed to.
Additionally, I need to start it with an option to make it readonly.
Here is some background to put the problem in context: Currently the .bat file looks like this:
"C:\My\Path\To\excel.exe" /r "S:\The\Path\To\File.xlsx" That file is on a shared drive. The user has a shortcut to to that file on their desktop.
When the user clicks on the short cut excel starts on File.xlsx.
But, when another user with a different path to excel does the same thing, the script just flashes the cmd window.
As an aside, I would also like to find a way to eliminate the cmd window from cluttering the screen while this is running.
This is related to this question: Allow multiple people to work with single readonly excel file
I tried making a short cut on the file and making the target:
start excel /r "S:\The\Path\To\File.xlsx" But if failed with this message: 
2 Answers
I can't test this at the moment, but I believe you can avoid the batch file. Simply create a shortcut with the following target:
Edit: Try the following for a batch file:
START excel.exe /r "S:\The\Path\To\File.xlsx" EXIT Also, I believe you could incorporate the registry key value for the Excel installation path by running the following batch command:
reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\excel.exe" I could not get the START to work in a shortcut because it requires a command line. I used the following and works great:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c START excel.exe /r "Use the UNC path so you don't have to map drive here\File.xlsx"
When you put in cmd.exe it automatically hard codes the path C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe
You can use %systemroot%\Systems32\cmd.exe..... to avoid hardcoding as much as possible.
