Microsoft Office Excel Interop Usage, Copy to local mode

Question

We are planning to use Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel dll in a windows service application to create excel reports.

The properties of the dll is set to "Copy to local" and "Embed Interop Types to false". This ensures the dll is placed in the bin folder where the binary is created.

But, my question is whether we can use "Copy to local" mode in an application. Will it violate any Microsoft license as the dll is part of Microsoft Office?

Please confirm.

Answer 1

It has been my experience that youll need Microsoft Office installed on the target computer to use the Interop. The Interop creates an Excel ActiveX object. That ActiveX object is not part of the Interop, but part of Microsoft Office. Theres no licence issues because the user had to purchase a license to install Microsoft Office.