Tutorial: how to build a guestbook with Excel as database

If you want to make a guestbook or other kind of messaging system for a web application, and you don't have a database available like MySQL with PHP or with ASP, then I have this free solution for you.
You can use Excel as a database, it's not supposed to serve as database for a web application, but technically it is possible.
So if your company ran out of budget or tools for a good database, read this page very carefully.

Note: it is buggy, it works only in IE in a Windows environment, and it does not work online because of browser securities. But it is a cheap and neat solution for an intraweb or intranet.

Here's the full script with tutorial and demo:
http://bulevardi.be/?content=scripting&example=exvb2

It contains the VBScript, Javascript and CSS for your HTML page.

Nice, but this would require a server with MS Office, you did point that out.  If that is the case, you can just use a MS Database, all you need to install is a JET driver and you can use the ADODB object to connect to it.  The ADODB object can also connect to EXCEL/WORD files, but it is pretty uncommon.
 
If you where really going to use this though, I would suggest a CSV file as it would give you the same functionality but also is supported across multiple platforms.
 
But nice all the same :).

Wel, actually, I started building it with a ADODB object and JET stuff etc... but every time I did a transaction to add or read something from the Excel file, I got a security popup that I couldn't get away. It was kind of annoying.

So that's why I made it without these ADODB things....
The advantage with ADODB is that you can make queries from your excel file for generating nice output.