Michael's homepage / exprt

[ exprt ]

Introduction

Exprt is a little program I wrote some time ago when I used to use Windows. It's a VBA add-in which cracks the password protection of workbooks and worksheets in Microsoft Excel 97/2000. I did a few tests with Excel XP and it removed the worksheet protection as well, although it took more time. Unfortunately, workbook protection could not be removed. It's freeware and you can also download the source code.

Overview

▪ description
▪ screenshots
▪ disclaimer
▪ source code
▪ download
▪ installation
▪ other exploit code

Description

Here's a short summary of the capabilities:

cracks workbook protection under one second (doesn't work with XP)
cracks worksheet protection in less seconds
nifty user interface for easy handling
optional creation of a log file

Screenshots

Here are some pictures of exprt in action. Click onto the images to enlarge them.

Disclaimer

It is strictly forbidden to use this program for illegal purposes!
In no event shall the author be held liable for misuse of this product, any loss of data, down time, loss of revenue or any other direct or indirect damage or claims arising from the use of exprt.

Source code

Even though it's somewhat unusual under Windows I've decided to publish the source code. If the code confuses you, don't worry since VBA sucks and is confusing by nature. Of course, the same applies to my coding qualities. To take a look at the source code just click onto the following links.

You can also download the entire source code files in zipped format.

Download

If you agree with the above disclaimer you can download exprt either directly as xla file or as zip file.

Installation

Since I got many requests on how to actually install and use exprt I thought it might be useful to write a few lines about. The probably easiest way to install/activate exprt is to double click onto it in the Windows Explorer. Excel should start up then and under 'Tools' ('Extras' in the German version) a new entry called 'Exprt' should appear. Just click onto it and the user interface should raise. That's it! I think the rest is self-explanatory. Besides, there's also an option to enable some quick-info messages.

Other exploit code

This bit of code (in similar form) was posted a long time ago in the German Excel newsgroup in a thread about Excel's protection weaknesses. It exploits one of Microsoft's bugs and silently removes the worksheet protection. It's faster than the kind of brute force (not really brute force) algorithm I'm using in exprt but it doesn't work with Excel XP.

It consists of just a single line:

With ThisWorkbook.ActiveSheet: .[A1].Copy .[A1]: End With

Michael Velten <w3@michnet.de>

Last change: Sun Dec 5 15:36:27 2010