Unable To Add Reference To Microsoft Excel In VSA

in an SSIS project i am building, i need to open up an excel workbook and execute a macro on that workbook. I have been unable to create the excel workbook object in my script task because i cannot seem to add a COM reference since VSA does not have this capability. in my research on the web i have seen a few solutions to this.

1. Microsoft Knowledge Base states that you can cause assemblies from other locations to be displayed in the .net list in VSA by adding other folder names under the AssemblyFolders registry key. i tried this but it had no effect and further research on the web found that nooneelse had any luck doing this either.
2. the other solution i saw is to add the needed dll to the C:WINDOWSMicrosoft.NETFrameworkv2.0.50727 directory. since i was unsure as to which dll is actually the one responsible for excel i just added all the dll's under the office11 directory in microsoft office. this too had no effect, as i still do not see the reference i need to microsoft excel in the list of available references.

this seems like this should be a fairly common problem but after several day of research and hair pulling, i have been unable to solve this. any help? anyone?