A way to unprotect Excel Workbooks

Ghost_of_Blotto · Mar 22, 2015

xandman said:
I even ran that Allinternalpasswords macro from mcgimsey. Einar Huse's straxx program which was mentioned does not work.

I suspect that Microsoft ran some backward compatible update many years ago since a hex editor won't do it but I don't have any files that are old enough. Even recently made xls files don't have the DPB value.

Did you catch that you are meant to save it in an older format not xlsx or xlsm just plain .xls before trying the hex editor?
I'd iterate through the old formats from XL 97 to current and see if any of them have the value.

Ghost_of_Blotto · Mar 22, 2015

Here is something you haven't mentioned trying (removing "workbookProtection" tag in the XML): http://datapigtechnologies.com/blog/index.php/hack-into-a-protected-excel-2007-or-2010-workbook

xandman · Mar 22, 2015

Ah. I was doing something wrong. The passwordbreaker did work on the XLS. Thanks for all the responses.

In case you think I've been lazy for the last 2 days. Yes, I tried saving to XLS. I also the zip technique , but I couldn't edit the XML file though it was clearly visible inside the my powerarchiver utility. Even explorer couldn't re-extract it out of the fake Zip. But hey, we're cooking with gas.

samuel11 · Mar 22, 2015

What is so valuable in that file?

xandman · Mar 22, 2015

Pre-recorded macros that make pivot tables. Specific highlights. Amateur stuff.

OTM-Options · Mar 22, 2015

samuel11 said:
What is so valuable in that file?

The perfect option formula. Enter a stock and it will output the option to buy for a 10x trade, xandman had been working on it for a few years and his efforts have finally paid off.

xandman · Mar 22, 2015

Your giving me too much credit.

i am nobody · Mar 23, 2015

xandman said:
Ah. I was doing something wrong. The passwordbreaker did work on the XLS. Thanks for all the responses.

In case you think I've been lazy for the last 2 days. Yes, I tried saving to XLS. I also the zip technique , but I couldn't edit the XML file though it was clearly visible inside the my powerarchiver utility. Even explorer couldn't re-extract it out of the fake Zip. But hey, we're cooking with gas.

I am missing something. What's the use of passwords if you can so easily remove them?

xandman · Mar 23, 2015

There's spreadsheet passwords for viewing security which is hard to break. The VBA passwords are more from tampering or accidentally deleting VBA objects.