Password Cracker (2000 SR-1)

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Can anyone recommend a FREE, and FREE is the operative word, download to crack passwords in Excel Workbooks.

The holiday season is well underway and a number of people have password protected workbooks and worksheets and off on holiday. Naturally they haven’t told anyone the passwords

Any recommendations would be gratefully received

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Hetty,
Are you talking about passwords to open the workbook, or passwords that protect the workbook/worksheets from changes? If it’s the former, then you may have considerable trouble even with commercial crackers, depending on the length and complexity of the password.

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Hi Rory

Both….unfortunately

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I don’t know offhand of any free crackers that will do passwords for opening workbooks. I have the Elcomsoft one, which comes in Pro and Standard versions and isn’t too expensive (you’d only need the Standard version) but as I mentioned, it can take weeks (or longer) to crack a complicated password by brute force! It will do passwords for modify protection pretty much instantaneously though. There is a trial version you can download but it only works for 30 days and will only do passwords up to 4 letters for brute force. I know there are free ones to do worksheet passwords but don’t have any web addresses offhand – I’m sure someone else can chip with some links to those. You can also in some versions of Excel remove the protection by reprotecting the sheet in code with a blank password!
Hope that helps.

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Erlandsen has a free password cracker, but it can take forever at the Workbook Protection level, and I don’t recall if it does Workbook Open Protection cracking.

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This is what the site says John… I guess it does work for the Workbook opening protection, but luckily I haven’t had to try that yet…
(Quick!…. Knock on some wood for me! )

“Find lost passwords
Have you ever forgotten or lost your workbook passwords?
This tool will find the lost workbook and worksheet protection passwords for you in a relative short time.
Have you forgotten the password you used to protect the file itself from being opened?
This tool can help you find this password too, but this will probably take a very long time.
This tool is not capable of unprotecting any VBprojects in a workbook.”

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Check out the link below…
http://www.erlandsendata.no/english/downloads/tools.php%5B/url%5D
I downloaded the “Find Lost Passwords” tool… I’ve only used it a couple of times but it’s worked great for me… It’s a free Addin…
Give it a shot and let me know what you think…

HTH

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Since the Lounge Search function is taking a rest, here are two sets of code for accessing password protected Worksheets that have been previously posted. Put either one into a standard module and attach it to a custom icon. I can vouch for the first.

Sub PasswordBreaker()
'Author unknown
'Breaks worksheet password protection.
Dim I As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer
Dim l As Integer, m As Integer, n As Integer
Dim i1 As Integer, i2 As Integer, i3 As Integer
Dim i4 As Integer, i5 As Integer, i6 As Integer
On Error Resume Next
    For I = 65 To 66: For j = 65 To 66: For k = 65 To 66
    For l = 65 To 66: For m = 65 To 66: For i1 = 65 To 66
    For i2 = 65 To 66: For i3 = 65 To 66: For i4 = 65 To 66
    For i5 = 65 To 66: For i6 = 65 To 66: For n = 32 To 126
        ActiveSheet.Unprotect Chr(I) & Chr(j) & Chr(k) & _
        Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & Chr(i3) & _
        Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
'It may be unnecessary to use the offered password
            If ActiveSheet.ProtectContents = False Then
                MsgBox "One usable password is " & Chr(I) & Chr(j) & _
                Chr(k) & Chr(l) & Chr(m) & Chr(i1) & Chr(i2) & _
                Chr(i3) & Chr(i4) & Chr(i5) & Chr(i6) & Chr(n)
                Exit Sub
            End If
    Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
    Next: Next: Next: Next: Next: Next
End Sub


Sub UnprotectActiveSheet()  
'Exploits a rather exotic security flaw to unprotect any workSHEET (97 SR2)
  Dim sDlgTitle As String
  sDlgTitle = "Sub UnprotectActiveSheet"
  With ActiveSheet
    If .ProtectContents = True Then
      'First pre-requisite
      .Protect userInterfaceOnly:=True
      'Second pre-requisite. Assumes all 'very last cells' are not used
      ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets.FillAcrossSheets .Range("IV65536")
      'Check whether trick was sucessfull
      If .ProtectContents = False Then
       'Trumpet it
        MsgBox "Protection of " & .Name & " was set to " & .ProtectContents, _
              vbInformation, sDlgTitle
      Else
        'Case security flaw will be patched
        MsgBox "Protection of " & .Name & " could not be removed", vbCritical, sDlgTitle
      End If
    Else
      MsgBox .Name & " was not protected to start with !", vbExclamation, sDlgTitle
    End If
  End With
End Sub

HTH

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Unk –

You make it seem so hard. To unprotect any active worksheet try:

Sub SheetPassword()
ActiveSheet.Protect “”, , , , True
ActiveSheet.Range(“A1”).Copy ActiveSheet.Range(“A1”)
End Sub

This will produce an error if A1 is merged, but you can easily change that to any other cell.

The only real advantage of your first version is that it gives you a password that you can use to re-protect the worksheet and still allow whoever has the original password to still use it.

Cheers

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Mate – you should have been around when these were originally posted in the Lounge! I’ve never really applied my own mind to this kind of thing.

Just to clarify your comment on the first piece I posted. The password it delivers isn’t necessarily the exact same password as was used to protect the sheet – although it works the same.

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Thanks to everyone for their assistance.

I am going to hand this over to those that can better deal with it than me. I don’t know VB and when I have tried to use it in the past, any success was purely luck. I wish this company would send me on a VB course, just to be able to employ code that has already been written.

Who knows it may be that we are going to have to invest some cold hard cash.

Again, many thanks

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Could you please explain how to use this macro. I also need a password to create a macro.

Thanks.

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If the workbook VB project is password protected, you will have to:
open a new workbook
Start vb, insert a module, copy the macro into the module.
Activate the sheet in the workbook that you want to unprotect
then run your macro in the other workbook.

Steve

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Hi,

The macros discussed in this thread are designed to remove worksheet protection. They do not remove passwords that prevent workbooks being opened. Nor do they remove passwords that have been set on vba projects.

If you “need a password to create a macro”, I suspect you’re after the last of the above. In that case, you’ll need to obtain the password from whoever protected the project or you’ll need to use one of the commercial programs.

Cheers

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Hi,

The macros discussed in this thread are designed to remove worksheet protection. They do not remove passwords that prevent workbooks being opened. Nor do they remove passwords that have been set on vba projects.

If you “need a password to create a macro”, I suspect you’re after the last of the above. In that case, you’ll need to obtain the password from whoever protected the project or you’ll need to use one of the commercial programs.

Cheers

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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Could you please explain how to use this macro. I also need a password to create a macro.

Thanks.

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