been asked the question how to open a password protected excel file - actually the CFO died suddenly, and a heap of her files are password protected !!
some seem to be almost day to day files, others as expected of a CFO a bit more specialised but needless to say important in the day to day CFO Office
is there a way to crack / hack / open - other than to use an upload - to an unknown website.. which does not alway s gaurantee success - and vital files become othe rpeoples property and #~IP and we have seen where sesitive files end up..
help/guidance appreciated
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Find a brute force cracker and let it run. May take a while. I don't think excel files lock on X attempts so shouldn't be a problem.
Find out his wife's maiden name and year of birth (or children)? Try "password". First School? First and last school? etc. Does his widow know his bank password? Have you checked his diary (inside or last page) and desk drawers? Even a file on his computer named "passwords".
or substitute husband and widower. ;-)
Worrying how a CFO is assumed to be a man.
Find out the name of her pet.
Especially when it says 'her' in the original post!
Sorry!!!
Not necessarily, you fossil! You'll have the LGBTQIA police on to you.
Any idea what version of Excel was used? Are they .xls or .xlsx files?
I am trying to remember when they significantly strengthened password encryption in Excel. It was in one of the more recent versions.
If you are "lucky" enough to have older encryption then there are downloadable password crackers which will quickly unlock a file. After that, as far as I am aware, you are into brute force and ignorance and, in practical terms, may be unbreakable.
What Paul said. Up to Excel 97/2000 it's relatively piece of cake. After that (unless saved in 97/2000 compatibility mode) it is markedly more difficult. But easier if you have the right software and hardware - specifically, graphics cards.
Read this:
https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2009/05/frequently-asked-question-advanced-of...
I had this when a client's legal cashier died suddenly. It's amazing how much the 'it won't happen to me' bury your head in the sand attitude prevails!
Fortunately I managed to crack it because I'd spent enough time talking to her over the months to know her partner's name, dog's name, etc.
We insist on passwords in sealed envelopes for this very reason.
MS products are known for "Soft spot". There are many codes written to unlock a password protect workbook. It might be a bit tricky if VBA is password protected.
There is a site which charges £5 to unlock VBA password as well.
Are there any in particular you can recommend looking at? Ever since MS tightened up security, I have struggled to find a solution.
Yes you can.
A little macro I use cracks all the passwords to date. Even had to crack my own as forgotten more than once.
Happy to send privately.
Richard- in response to my Any answer Question 'Excel password protected File' Would greatly appreciate any assistance which may solve this - if your macro can do the trick - would be most greatful. not sure if you could attach via aweb - so my bus address is ar_rcl[ at ]hotmail.co.uk
Again thanks in advance - will of course let you know how it goes. some file versions are xls others later....
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If you're familiar with VBA, you can try running the Password Breaker code on the files and it may unlock the files for you. You would need to save it in your Personal Macro Workbook as a module or in another xlsm (Macro-enabled) file.
I'm not allowed to reproduce the code in this forum, as it trips the security and locks me out, but if you follow this link, you will see a copy of the code:
https://uknowit.uwgb.edu/page.php?id=28850
I hope that it helps you!
Stephen
These password breaker macro codes do work, but the ones mentioned here work by unprotecting an excel 'worksheet'.
I think the OP is faced with password protected excel 'files' i.e. he/she cannot open the file without the password.
In this case, I believe the OP will need to find some password breaker software online.
If I'm wrong, and the OP is just trying to unprotect a sheet, then the password breaker macro will work.
If it is the file that is password protected, as opposed to the worksheet, as suggested by Manchester_man, then you'll need to purchase commercial software that can unlock the file. When faced with this problem in the past, I found that Elcomsoft's Advanced Office Password Recovery software was able to unlock password protected files in seconds. Here's a link to their website:
https://www.elcomsoft.com/aopr.html
It leaves the original file intact, but creates an unlocked version that you should be able to open and does not involve sending the file to a website.
I hope that this helps.
Hi,
It is really very difficult to get data from password protected hard disk drive but if you have a perfect utility for recovering your data from the password secured hard drive then you can easily recover your lost data.