Hi there, Ericpcif.
You're correct. This error can happen if QuickBooks can't locate Excel when exporting the report. In your case, you've mentioned that the remote server does not have Excel installed on it.
You can temporarily copy the company file in your local computer while exporting the report. I'd also suggest reaching reaching out to your IT person to help you move or copy the file from the remove server to your local drive.
You can also check out this article for any other errors when exporting reports to Excel: Fix export to Excel issues in QuickBooks Desktop.
Let me know if you need anything else.
