Read specific columns from Excel files with C#

1. Download and install Office 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies on your computer
2. Create a Visual studio Project and add a reference to 'Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.dll' from the GAC.
3. Now you can write this code to read data from any Excelfile

Example:

using Excel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;

string pathOfExcelFile = "C:\\MyDataFile.xls";
Excel.Application excelApp = new Excel.Application();

excelApp.DisplayAlerts = false; //Don't want Excel to display error messageboxes  
Excel.Workbook workbook = excelApp.Workbooks.Open(pathOfExcelFile, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing,                                            Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing,                      Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing, Type.Missing); //This opens the file
Excel.Worksheet sheet = workbook.get_Item(1); //Get the first sheet in the file
Excel.Range bColumn = sheet.get_Range("B", null);

List<string> dataItems = new List<string>();

foreach (object o in bColumn) 
{
     Excel.Range row = o as Excel.Range;
     string s = row.get_Value(null);
     dataItems.Add(s);
}