Do you know these situations when you made some kind of a form in Excel, password protected the workbook, sheets and/or even VBA access…and months later people ask for password in order to modify it? This is were trouble starts – how should I know what password I used months ago and, of course, I did not share it ;-).
Since I had this situation several times at work, herewith – more as a reference for myself – a short walkthrough how to regain access to your VBA project .
Of course, this is only supposed to help on your own projects and not be used to access other people’s work! And same story as always: Make a backup of your file before you start. I found this originally at Schmitti’s Page.
As a prerequisite you’ll need some kind of Hex Editor in order edit the file:
- Open file with Hex Editor.
- Search for the bytes 44 50 42, or for the chars DPB. Be sure that strings “GC=” and “[Host Extender Info] exist after these chars!
Change the chars DPB to DBx.- Save the file.
- Open the file with Excel.
- Choose “Yes” in error message asking for continuing loading.
Confirm “Ok” in unexpected error message which follows.
Open the preferences of the VBA project (Alt + F11 -> Tools -> VBAProject Properties) and enter a new password. This step is implicitly required and finalize by confirming with “Ok”.
Finally repeat Step 8, delete your new password and save file.
