Find then save and close all open Excel documents

Question

I need help creating a PowerShell script that will find all open Excel documents, then first if the document is read only close the document without saving and suppress prom

Answer 1

@bgalea had the right idea, but the answer is very incomplete. For one thing, re-attaching to COM objects only works in the context of the user who created the object, so you'd have to create either a scheduled task that runs as that particular user or a logoff script (automatically runs in a user's context at logoff).

Since you apparently want to run this periodically, a logoff script probably isn't an option, so you may want to use a logon script to create a respective scheduled task for each user, e.g. like this:

schtasks /query /tn "Excel Cleanup" >nul 2>&1
if %errorlevel% neq 0 schtasks /create /tn "Excel Cleanup" /sc DAILY /tr "wscript.exe \"C:\path\to\your.vbs\"" /f

The VBScript run by these tasks might look somewhat like this:

On Error Resume Next
'attach to running Excel instance
Set xl = GetObject(, "Excel.Application")
If Err Then
  If Err.Number = 429 Then
    'Excel not running (nothing to do)
    WScript.Quit 0
  Else
    'unexpected error: log and terminate
    CreateObject("WScript.Shell").LogEvent 1, Err.Description & _
      " (0x" & Hex(Err.Number) & ")"
    WScript.Quit 1
  End If
End If
On Error Goto 0

xl.DisplayAlerts = False  'prevent Save method from asking for confirmation
                          'about overwriting existing files (when saving new
                          'workbooks)
                          'WARNING: this might cause data loss!

For Each wb In xl.Workbooks
  wb.Save
  wb.Close False
Next

xl.Quit
Set xl = Nothing

If you want a PowerShell script instead of VBScript you need to use the GetActiveObject() method to attach to a running Excel instance.

try {
  # attach to running Excel instance
  $xl = [Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')
} catch {
  if ($_.Exception.HResult -eq -2146233087) {
    # Excel not running (nothing to do)
    exit 0
  } else {
    # unexpected error: log and terminate
    Write-EventLog -LogName Application `
      -Source 'Application Error' `
      -EventId 500 `
      -EntryType Error `
      -Message $_.Exception.Message
    exit 1
  }
}

$xl.DisplayAlerts = $false  # prevent Save() method from asking for confirmation
                            # about overwriting existing files (when saving new
                            # workbooks)
                            # WARNING: this might cause data loss!

foreach ($wb in $xl.Workbooks) {
  $wb.Save()
  $wb.Close($false)
}

$xl.Quit()
[void][Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($xl)
[GC]::Collect()
[GC]::WaitForPendingFinalizers()

According to Microsoft's documentation the GetObject() method is supposed to work as well:

[void][Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.VisualBasic')
$xl = [Microsoft.VisualBasic.Interaction]::GetObject($null, 'Excel.Application')

but when I tried it I ended up with an additional (hidden) Excel instance instead of attaching to the already running one.

Note: If for some reason a user has started multiple Excel instances you will need to run the code once for each instance.