I also would not recommend using office apps on a server except for data access to mdb files.
I can definitely understand that there are times where it is necessary. In thoses cases
I would recommend the following:
- Create a separate server where that is the only function. (Let's you reboot with minimum impact).
- Have the server implement a mechanism of queuing requests
- Keep a single thread processing the queue. This gives you the ability to keep track of the office app, kill it if necessary, and continue on without impacting any queued up jobs or other applications.
If you absolutely need to do it on the same server, then at least implement the above in it's own app pool.
Limiting yourself keeping a queue of work and only one instance of Excel (or any other office app) let's you kill it with abandon with TaskKill or .Kill() and not lose work.
I believe if you keep it to a single thread then you would rarely have a need to kill it.
