Open Colon delimited file from command line in Excel

I want to create a shortcut or a command to open a file that uses a colon : as a delimiter in excel.

I know via the UI I can

• click "From Text/CSV"
• select a file
• click Import
• select a delimiter (colon)
• click load and it works as I would expect.

Or alternatively from the UI

• Open the file
• Data-> Text to Columns, wizard pops up
• Select Delimited [Next]
• Delimiter [x] other value : [Next]
• Finish
• Desired View

I can do

excel.exe sample.csv

and open a csv file fine I would like to do something like

if you do the obvious

excel.exe colonDelimFile.dat

the entire row ends up in a single cell

So I would like to run some command like this that opens the colon Delimited File in excel as expected like below but I cannot find the arguments or commands.

excel.exe <some args> colonDelimFile.dat

even something like

<command to set delims>
excel.exe colonDelimFile.dat
<command to restore delims

or something similar. I cant seem to find any good documentation on excel from the command line for others here is what I have found:

I also know that you can specify the separator in the file itself by putting this as the first line

sep=:

But I want to leave the file unmodified except for any changes the user makes and saves to the file in terms of values.

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