sorry I just posted this in the forum instead of hitting reply, so here it is
again:
use browse file control in WinForms toolbarand select filter property to be
of excel file type. this is as straighforward as it can be.
open excel file in datagrid? you need to have some type of custom format -
excel files contain macros, pictures, embedded objects. How do you plan to
display them?
One suggestions that springs to mind would be to parse excel's file contents
using office object model, stick it into Data object, have the datagrid
populate from the data object, and so you can also persist the data object in
you sql database.