Can't close Excel completely using win32com on Python

Question

This is my code, and I found many answers for VBA, .NET framework and is pretty strange. When I execute this, Excel closes.

from win32com.client import DispatchEx
excel = DispatchEx('Excel.Application')
wbs = excel.Workbooks
wbs.Close()
excel.Quit()
wbs = None
excel = None # <-- Excel Closes here

But when I do the following, it does not close.

excel = DispatchEx('Excel.Application')
wbs = excel.Workbooks
wb = wbs.Open('D:\\Xaguar\\A1.xlsm')
wb.Close(False)
wbs.Close()
excel.Quit()
wb = None
wbs = None
excel = None  # <-- NOT Closing !!!

I found some possible answer in Stack Overflow question Excel process remains open after interop; traditional method not working. The problem is that is not Python, and I don't find Marshal.ReleaseComObject and GC. I looked over all the demos on ...site-packages/win32com and others.

Even it does not bother me if I can just get the PID and kill it.

I found a workaround in Kill process based on window name (win32).

May be not the proper way, but a workround is:

def close_excel_by_force(excel):
    import win32process
    import win32gui
    import win32api
    import win32con

    # Get the window's process id's
    hwnd = excel.Hwnd
    t, p = win32process.GetWindowThreadProcessId(hwnd)
    # Ask window nicely to close
    win32gui.PostMessage(hwnd, win32con.WM_CLOSE, 0, 0)
    # Allow some time for app to close
    time.sleep(10)
    # If the application didn't close, force close
    try:
        handle = win32api.OpenProcess(win32con.PROCESS_TERMINATE, 0, p)
        if handle:
            win32api.TerminateProcess(handle, 0)
            win32api.CloseHandle(handle)
    except:
        pass

excel = DispatchEx('Excel.Application')
wbs = excel.Workbooks
wb = wbs.Open('D:\\Xaguar\\A1.xlsm')
wb.Close(False)
wbs.Close()
excel.Quit()
wb = None
wbs = None
close_excel_by_force(excel) # <--- YOU #@#$# DIEEEEE!! DIEEEE!!!

Answer 1

Try this:

wbs.Close()
excel.Quit()
del excel # this line removed it from task manager in my case