Hi, I was not able to make it work from my system, however I did get it to work properly by putting the desktop file on the server where the database resides. I also installed the redistributable http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=13255 on that server, after making sure Office was installed there as well.

The job now works as scheduled, but if I try to run it manually from my system I still get the same "opening Excel" error.

Good luck, I know it took a long time and a lot of trial and error for me to find the solution that worked for me. Just keep applying all the suggestions everyone has made and eventually one of them will fit.