I'm writing a script which opens each excel file in a directory, reads some values from the workbook, then closes the workbook, and I had the same problem of Excel quitting when I closed the workbook.

The inspiration came when I noticed the problem did not happen if I manually opened Excel first (with the default, blank "Book1")

The work-around I used was to create a new workbook first, process all the files, (open, close, open, close...) then close my "KeepOpen" workbook when I was all done:

$KeepOpen = $Excel->Workbooks -> Add;
# your code / loop here
$KeepOpen -> Close;
[download]

Hope this helps,
-- zaaj