This worked for me:
function searchExcel()
{
var excel =new ActiveXObject("Excel.Application");
excel.visible=true;
var wb = excel.workbooks.open("D:\\Analysis\\tmp\\Book1.xlsx");
var ws = wb.sheets(1);
var str="Value1";
// .Find(What, After, LookIn, LookAt, SearchOrder, SearchDirection,
// MatchCase, MatchByte, SearchFormat)
var cell = ws.Cells.Find(str,ws.Cells(1),-4163,1)
alert(cell?cell.Row:(str+" not found"));
excel.quit();
}
I guess you cannot skip over parameters when using COM from js (but you can leave them off the end).