Spreadshee​tLink/xlsw​rite/XLS macro issue

Hi I use xlswrite function to paste Matlab data into an .xls file. The spreadsheet also includes a macro that runs some matlab functions, which means i need to have SpreadsheetLinkEx reference activated. The problem is that as long as SpreadsheetLinkEx reference box is checked, xlswrite can't paste the data into excel (the function freezes at the Excel.Workbooks.Open(file) step). Has anybody encountered this problem before? if so, can you suggest a workaround? Thanks,

Mariano