VB Macro Password Protection Issue in Excel

[Haluk]

Hi,

One of our laptops in our company has a newly installed Office 2002 (xp)
which was actually installed after Office 2007 got uninstalled. One of our
standard excel programs is using a VB Macro and is password protected. There
seems to be something wrong with some setting because when this excel
workbook is opened, the password is prompted; however when the right password
is typed in, it doesn't recokgnize the password anymore. By the way this
same laptop had Office 2002 installed before but because of a virus
infection, computer was set-up from scratch and Office 2007
installed/uninstalled, then Office 2002 (xp) got reinstalled.
I modified regional settings and stuff to see if a character was causing
this error - that did not help either.
By the way, person who wrote the VB code is not around anymore and I don't
have software and/or expreience to troubleshoot the VB script either. All I
know is this same script has been running without any issues on different
versions of excel (97, 2002, 2003, 2007).

Anyway, any type of feedback is appreciated on this. Thanks in advance...

 

[Steve Peel]

Haluk
I have run into this previously. From what I could tell, there was nothing
telling Excel to change a password but it did it anyway. I used an addin
file I found using Online Excel Help called Password Assistant. It simply
runs an procedure that tries all possible combinations of letters and numbers
until it finds one that unlocks your worksheet. It did cost money ($50 - I
think). but is handy for forgotten passwords. Once you get into the
worksheet, open the VB editor and find the line of code that reads -
[Filename].xls.Protect Password:="[Password]". This can be written with many
variables so it might be easier to use the "Edit - Find" function and search
for the word "Protect" in the "current project". You may want to delete that
line of code once you find it and manually protect the sheet - I have never
had problems with manually protected sheets.