oledb connection string for Excel 2016 in C#

This occurred for me after upgrading from a local install of Office 13 to Office 16 through the Office 365 program. I was getting this exception: The 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine.

I was not able to find a way to install the driver through the office 365 install process.

I had to install https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=13255 - the x64 version did not solve the issue, had to use the 32bit version.

My connection string in App.config

    <add key="Excel07ConnectionString" value="Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source={0};Extended Properties='Excel 8.0;HDR=YES'"/>

Code using it:

            var excelConnectionString = ConfigurationSettings.GetExcelConnection(fileLocation);
            var dataTable = new DataTable();

            using (var excelConnection = new OleDbConnection(excelConnectionString))
            {
                excelConnection.Open();
                var dataAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM [Users$]", excelConnection);
                dataAdapter.Fill(dataTable);
                excelConnection.Close();
            }
            Console.WriteLine("OpenExcelFile: File successfully opened:" + fileLocation);
            return dataTable;

This worked for me:

private string ExcelConnection(string fileName)
{
    return @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" +
           @"Data Source=" + fileName + ";" +
           @"Extended Properties=" + Convert.ToChar(34).ToString() +
           @"Excel 8.0" + Convert.ToChar(34).ToString() + ";";
}